


Heartbeat

by Linane



Series: The Sound of Silence [4]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, fili and kili are not related
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2018-12-15 11:18:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11804922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linane/pseuds/Linane
Summary: Silence Verse - Additional Scenes





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Whilst I'm happy with the Sound of Silence trillogy in its sparse, concise form, there is so much more to this story in my head. This is where I'll be putting all the little snippets that flesh out their relationship and world. Please keep in mind that the chapters will end up not necessarily in chronological order - the best way to read it is as a nebulous collection of ficlets associated with the Silence Verse.

 

 

“I spotted him at the train platform. I only had ten minutes until my train was due but he was just… I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.”

The projector, taking up one whole wall of the room, drones on the same melodramatic show as for the last 45 minutes they have spent waiting for their much-delayed appointment. This one is for a face to face interview and to take Fili’s DNA sample for his brand new ID cube.

His nerves feel like fraying edges of a rope and he forces himself to watch the cheap housewife telly to distract himself, despite the bile rising in his stomach.

“We just… started talking,” says an enthusiastic young man. “We couldn’t stop. It all just… poured out of us. Who we were, what we liked –“

“It had been seven years since I lost my voice. I had lost my hope to be honest.”

“In the end, she ended up boarding the Chicago Bullet with me. We could have exchanged the data signatures and met another time, but we just couldn’t bear to be apart.”

Fili squeezes his eyes shut and tells himself that he isn’t broken. At least not beyond repair.

He can’t be.

He startles when Kili takes his hand and squeezes it gently, but doesn’t say a thing.

 

\---

 

PLACE AND DATE OF BIRTH

The letters appear crisp and unyielding on the large, old-fashioned tablet screen in front of Fili. He’s filled it all in countless times already, on various colourful online forms and even in actual writing, so it’s hard to tell why they’re going through this again. He has an option of course of typing the information in, but –

“Williamsburg, Virginia. 26th of August 2024.”

He says it slowly to Kili, watching his reaction, but he only gets surprise and a warm, reassuring smile.

These are only facts and figures of Fili’s life, not a record of who he is and what he’s been through, but they are more than he’s ever shared before.

 

\---

 

The first time it all becomes too much they both get it spectacularly wrong.

Fili locks himself in the spare bedroom.

Kili keeps banging on the door, terrified by what he might find inside, but trying to get in all the same.

The panic attack escalates to the point where Fili loses it completely.

Later Kili will tell him that he finally stopped when he heard the window being opened and a quiet murmurs being repeated over and over again.

“Please stop. Please stop. Please –“

Fili doesn’t remember saying the words; only overwhelming fear and pain. He wonders if he was always saying them on previous occasions, only there was never anyone to hear.

The following morning, when he finally makes himself open the door, he finds Kili curled up on the floor against the doorframe, sleeping.

The strange little pang in his chest, the one that makes him want to protect and care, is back, making him step over the prone body, make some tea in the little kitchen and gently shake Kili awake.

“I’m sorry,” he says, small and laughably inadequate.

Almond shaped eyes blink at him tiredly, but Kili takes the offered cup and accepts Fili’s help getting up to his feet.

“We need a system,” Kili says quietly, dark circles under his eyes, sitting heavily on the edge of his bed.

Fili nods carefully, watching him from the corner of his eye.

“How about, just for a start, I promise never to try and open the door if it’s closed and you promise never to lock it again?”

Fili considers, wondering if his demons could be made to trust and play fair, but nods again.

 

\---

 

“I am not putting him through Difficult Transitions Therapy, mum. He’s not one of those folks who’s always been a townie and now discovered that their One is a dairy farmer deep in the rural South. He’d run for the hills and it would feel like a betrayal.”

Kili is being quiet in the kitchen, but Fili has excellent hearing and the flat isn’t that big. He makes a token sloshing noise with his foot at the bottom of the bath in the brief pause, so it doesn’t seem like he’s listening.

“You are not trained for these sorts of situations, Kili. That’s all I’m saying,” comes the oddly modulated female voice, which tells Fili that they’re using the Skype with the lip-reading add-on. The app then selects the appropriate word from a library built of every scrap of audio and video recording of Dis before the Great Silence and plays it in an odd, discordant string of a sentence.

“I could learn. I found this book yesterday in the little second-hand shop. It’s helping me understand him. Some of the things he does. Some of the things he needs. But it has to be… bespoke. He’s not like everyone else. We need to work this out ourselves.”

“I understand why you’re trying to save him, I really do. You’re fighting so hard, trying to pull him out. But have you ever considered that he might pull you down instead?”

Fili takes a deep breath and slides underwater, voices getting distorted and disappearing, leaving him blessedly alone with his thoughts again. He luxuriates in the weightless, clean heat enveloping his body and tries to make sense of what he’s feeling.

 _Like I’ve lost all control_ , is the first thing that comes to his mind.

He doesn’t like being talked about, being in the spotlight, when for years he’s been invisible to almost everyone around him. He doesn’t like feeling indebted and in a way trapped by having overnight become a major part of somebody else’s life. He’s used to surviving, one day at a time; used to observing and being left alone.

Trying to do more than just stay alive is emotionally exhausting, constantly pulling the rug from under his feet with questions he doesn’t want to face.

His lungs are burning by the time he re-surfaces to gulp down some much needed air in a mighty splash.

_”Have you ever considered that he might pull you down instead?”_

 

\---

 

Travelling is where they finally find common ground.

There are things to be done, places to be, new people, schedules and duties.

It’s just all so… practical. It’s about just _being_.

The first trip – two weeks in the Serengeti – is enough to make Fili catch the travelling bug.

It’s like he’s been transplanted to some fantastical other planet, like everything he knows, everything that has constituted his life so far has been put into perspective. It’s inspiring with concepts and solutions provoking him with questions and thoughts that he wants to share.

“Remembering that before the Great Silence these were societies with very clearly defined male and female roles, do you know how they dealt with the concept of same-sex Bonds?” Kili asks one clammy night, perched on top of a tree, where they’ve escaped for the minimal amount of breeze it receives.

“Tell me,” he asks simply, enchanted and fascinated.

“They had a meeting. Out there in the bush. Any tribe was welcome. And then they talked. In the end they decided on a system where each partner plays each traditional role for one month. And then they swap. Fathers become mothers sometimes; mothers become fathers. They put on gender-appropriate traditional clothing and go hang out with others of the same role. And that, my friend, is why we’re here in October, when our guide, Naib has her husband look after the children, while she goes tracking prey with obnoxious white men. She’s a much better tracker, too.”

Fili’s first thought is _I want to know what he knows. I want to have his life._

“You know, having to worry about possible theft of identity is not how I envisaged our relationship,” Kili chuckles.

Damn it, he forgot to catch the words again. Fili scowls, but Kili is grinning at him from the branch below.

“But you’re more than welcome to share my life, share in the adventure, if you like.”

The following morning he watches Kili work, his sharp focus shifting from Fili to the beautiful fauna around them and he finally feels like he can breathe again. He loves the quiet hours in the shade, watching Kili’s back, learning him little by little, the silence, the distance and even the quiet little banter. He even loves the village because here he has no past and the only reason why kids run up to him and tug at his clothes is because he’s got the most fascinating shade of hair anyone has ever seen.

It gives him a template for what a good life might be like, for what is possible.

In the Serengeti Fili finds his perspective and his freedom.

 

\---

 

Dis, and the journal she gives him, help enormously as well.

Writing gives him an outlet, a structure, a hiding place, without having to physically leave. This in turn helps Kili.

But it also makes things harder, more honest between them.

“Read this bit,” he offers, shifting from the opposite end of the sofa to pass Kili the journal and point out the passage he’s marked with little sticky notes.

_Sometimes I hate him. With his perfect life and saintly character. It’s like he has no flaws and I hold all of them. I keep stumbling and he keeps picking me up, like he picked me up that first night. You need to make mistakes, Kili. You need to let me see them. You need to let me save you every once in a while._

Kili nods and passes it back, looking pale. It’s obvious that he’s thinking, that he’s turning the words in his head, but Fili is glad that he managed to show him.

 

\---

 

“Don’t decide for me. Ask.”

“Alright. Would you like to go shopping with me?”

“No. There will be people I know by the supermarket watching me follow you like an obedient pet and it will make me want to save them all over again. Ask you to buy them food. Apologise that you found me. Try to make them understand.”

“But you haven’t left the house in days. We could go somewhere else, we could go for a walk...”

“I like the house. Especially when you’re not in it. I like the quiet. I need my solitude, my space.”

They watch each other for a moment, but then Kili licks his lips and slowly nods.

“Can I get you anything?”

“No,” Fili replies and thinks that some other time he will ask Kili to stop buying him things.

 

\---

 

Oddly, it’s the physical closeness that Fili compromises on first.

He watches the dark mop of hair in his lap and automatically sinks his fingers in. Kili is always so open, so responsive, so completely ready for Fili’s touch, Fili’s questions, even his outbursts. He’s not afraid of showing not only his pleasure, but also his weaknesses, like fear and doubt and hurt. His warmth, his breaths, his hands are the things that first wrangle Fili’s demons.

It’s just Kili’s natural Kiliness and Fili doesn’t mind.

One day he’s the one to wake up with his head pillowed in Kili’s lap and he finds he doesn’t mind that either. He rolls to the other side, away from the telly, and closes his eyes against the soft, careful pleasure of Kili’s fingers.

 

\---

 

The first time it happens, Fili nearly runs away from his One.

They’re standing in a queue for the self-service tills when he spots a packet of honey and cinnamon cereal pillows getting packed away by a middle-aged lady in front of them.

He remembers what they taste like; with creamy milk and a handful of blueberries that his mum used to add so Fili would have ‘something other than sugar in that bowl’. They used to taste amazing mixed in.

He remembers finding a packet of honey and cinnamon pillows years later, going through some bins. Amazingly the box was still half-full, probably because the expiry date lapsed 3 months ago. He remembers the way the two other guys looked at him, as he shoved a whole handful right in his mouth, remembers how hungry they all were; remembers the fight, bloodied nose and the last of the cereal crushed into the dirt next to his face by retreating boots.

“How about we try some raspberries next time?” asks his mother. That was the morning of the accident. She always had warm hands.

“Fili? Are you alright?”

 _I miss you,_ he thinks and opens his mouth to say as much, to his mother, to the stupid colourful packet retreating inside a plastic carrier bag, but –

He can’t.

He can’t get his voice out!!

“Fili?!”

He stares into the dark eyes made even darker with worry and chokes on the scream that can’t make it out of his throat.

He lied. Somehow, he isn’t Kili’s One at all. He can’t be; those words are not supposed to run out. He must have lost it voice all those years ago, temporarily, then had it back, but now he’s wasted his last words all over again and –

_I never told you I loved you that morning._

He needs to get out, needs to get back to the gutters where he belongs. He didn’t mean to hurt Kili, but maybe he can forget him and -

He yanks at the hands pulling him, wrenches himself free with a silent cry.

He’s Voiceless. He doesn’t belong to anyone. He’s nothing but –

“FILI!!”

It’s the arms thrown around his shoulders into a tight, private space that finally stop him. Darkness, their space, just them, no one else. Just them.

“Fili? Look at me, focus just on me. It’s alright, everything’s okay. You need to talk to me, Fee.”

“He’s just lost his voice.”

“Poor thing.”

“What a shame. During something as mundane as a shopping trip.”

“You should take him to the Centre, dearest.”

Voices around them and people, so many people staring at him, witnessing his guilt and the terrible lie he somehow told the one person who has been unconditionally kind to him.

“N-Not the Centre,” he manages, eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Not there.”

“There you are.” Warmth, familiar voice and almond-shaped eyes with those ridiculously long eyelashes. “I think you just got lost in your head for a moment there. Are you okay?”

“Not the Centre.”

“No. Of course not. We’re not going to the Centre,” Kili agrees, completely ignoring the people around them, his fingers finding their way into Fili’s hair. “But we could go home, if you wanted.”

“… You’re hearing this?” he hesitates, because so often the voices in his head are no different from the ones that get out.

“Of course, Fili. You’re my One.”

That’s right. He’s Kili’s. Kili holds his voice. He hasn’t lied after all.

“Would you like to come home with me? Or somewhere else? Maybe through the park?”

Fili rests his forehead against Kili’s, trying to calm down the whirlwind of his thoughts. “Home,” he whispers, trying to forget the honey and cinnamon cereal pillows.

 

\---

 

He doesn’t know yet if Kili could be his One in a romantic sense; but he’s not stupid, he can see plain as day that Kili is a good, kind person.

He sees the pain and the hurt in his eyes every time Fili flinches. The patience when Fili has a bad day and chooses to keep his words all day long. Kili thinks it’s his fault, that he’s done or said something wrong.

He watches the battles Kili fights himself, how he still tries to protect Fili from them. In a sense they’re doing the same thing, but separately.

Kili offers to get him a therapist several times. A private one, a friend of the family, real gentle soul.

Fili declines every time. It’s not like his faith in the humanity has been restored. So far he has faith in _Kili_ and he’s not ready to open up to anybody else. Perhaps he’ll never be.

Besides, he’s had years of practice picking his own thoughts and emotions apart. There’s nothing they could tell him that he can’t figure out for himself.

Fundamentally he’s being self-destructive. Sabotaging his own chance at happiness. Because deep down he doesn’t believe he deserves any of this.

But it’s for him and him alone to change that belief.

 

\---

 

It all comes to him one stormy night, standing in the doorframe of Kili’s bedroom. He can almost feel the cold, the rain, the stench of the street and his hair soaked to his scalp. He breathes slowly through his nose and wages a war with himself.

Does he want to be saved?

He looks at the slumbering young man, who, the universe insists, belongs to him.

With Kili in the picture it’s actually really easy.

 _Yes_ , his heart responds and he pads closer to the bed, _but Fili will be the one doing the saving,_ insists his mind.

Everything else is just semantics.

He ducks a little when the lightening cuts the sky again and shakes the sleeping form urgently.

“F-Fee? What’s wrong?” the dark eyes blink at him in confusion.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” he asks simply, because that’s what he needs to do.

“Of course,” there’s no hesitation as Kili shuffles out of his warm spot, flicking the covers for Fili to get in as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He sinks into the other’s warmth and allows himself to be tucked in up to his chin. Kili’s arm ends up wrapped loosely around his waist, pulling him gently closer, but he thinks that’s just how Kili sleeps, and the weight is pleasantly distracting.

He wakes up still cocooned in that warmth and with the heavenly smell of pancakes with melted butter wafting in from the kitchen, he forgets to overthink last night.

 

\---

 

“I’d like to do this,” Kili says one day.

The leaflet is shiny and it features a pair of beautiful cream-coloured horses against some trees full of golden leaves.

“It’s a horse sanctuary, a little way out of town. They’re always looking for volunteers to help them run the place. I’ve rang them and they can put us up overnight, if we come on Thursday and stay until Friday. They’re having an open day this weekend. It will probably just be two days of mucking out the stables –“ Kili laughs and Fili can’t help a but feel drawn to it, “- but I could use an excuse to get out of the house.”

“I’ll come with you,” he says in the evening, washing the dishes and passing them to Kili to dry off.

“Thank you,” Kili smiles and Fili accepts the easy validation.

 

\---

 

It is two days of mucking out the stables.

By the end of the first day they are both exhausted to the core, aching all over and they don’t know how they could possibly move the following day.

They stink, as if they’d been rolling in the stuff.

Their accommodation turns out to be a spot on top of the fresh hay bales in the barn, with some blankets and two scratchy pillows.

Kili keeps sneezing until the early morning hours, until eventually, in the interest of his own sleep, Fili rolls over and pulls Kili’s head to rest on top of his shoulder and murmurs soothing nonsense into his sweaty hair, which finally sends them both to sleep.

But the horses, like the people of the Serengeti, don’t judge. And like in the Serengeti, the two of them are on the same, muck-covered, uneven footing here.

Fili presses his forehead to the heads of old, tired mares and thinks it’s magical when they let him.

He keeps his distance from the terrified, mistreated horses, watching them from the opposite corral, and thinks he knows how they feel.

And at the end of the second day, when they’ve finished the last corral and are leaning heavily on their spades, the owner appears to take in their sorry state and says: “alright. Why don’t you two clean up a bit at the outdoors showers and help me take some of them for their daily ride?”

It’s the first time in his life that Fili gets to ride a horse and he’s so moved that he’s staying quiet for entirely different reasons. Kili on the other hand, magically restored by some cool water and a clean change of clothes, chatters his head off with the owner at the front.

Somehow, in Fili’s head, this becomes the plan B. If Kili was ever to kick him out, Fili will come here and beg to be allowed to stay in the barn and help look after those beautiful, gentle creatures.

 

\---

 

“You need more of this,” Kili says on the bus back home, utterly boneless, his head customarily by now resting on top of Fili’s shoulder.

“Yes. It helps,” he admits carefully and feels Kili’s tired smile.

 

\---

 

He likes evenings.

Evenings are when they curl up in Kili’s bed (normal, so normal by now and no questions asked) and chatter quietly for a while before they fall asleep.

It’s comfortable and it’s theirs, and slowly, fragment by fragment, Fili offers little bits of himself.

 

\---

 

Fili remembers the first time he stumbled upon Kili’s considerable collection of National Geographic magazines. As an employee, he’s entitled to a free subscription and it helps him keep professional level with competition. Most of the magazines live in slightly haphazardly organised boxes, and Fili traces his fingers over the bold yellow spines, carefully pulling out one of them and padding back to the sofa to settle down with it.

He loses himself in ancient Persia, then the traditions of people around the Baikal Lake and the last flight of the Concorde. For the first time Fili considers writing professionally, regarding the power that the written word had over its readers.

A week later Fili has divided his stash of magazines into two piles.

“This is one of yours,” he begins – half statement, half question – and holds up an open issue from the pile he’s kept neatly marked with little scraps of paper.

“It is. Ancient one,” Kili takes it from his hands to peer at the glossy paper critically. “I clearly liked playing with perspective back then. How did you know?”

“Because I have seen you shoot. But I wasn’t sure.” Fili picks another one and passes it to Kili. “And this one?”

“Yeah, this was Guatemala, four years ago.”

Fili nods, then rummages a bit longer through the pile he’s marked out. “This one?”

Kili grins. “Oh, I remember this one. This guy on the left is Benny. He was our guide for part of the way. Incredibly resourceful. He had us eating frogs cooked over open fire at one point and they weren’t even half bad. Next to him is his One, Malei. She got me incredible photos of tribe women, you know? One day, she just came up to me, tugged at the neck strap of my most valuable camera and demanded that I part with it. In fact, I think somewhere here, there is – Aha! See? This is one of hers. That’s why the credit –“

Fili leans back, listens and watches. Kili comes alive talking about photography and his travels and it’s one of the most fascinating things Fili has ever seen in his life. When he runs out of interesting anecdotes, Fili passes him another one, then another and another.

“Ask me,” Kili demands around the third one.

“Will you please tell me about this one?”

“What would you like to know?”

“It’s very… soft. Mother and her child. Everything about this is soft. How did you do it?”

They don’t go to sleep that night. Instead morning finds them exhausted and passed out on the sofa, Fili stretched with his head resting awkwardly on the arm rest, with one hand wrapped tightly around Kili tucked under his chin.

Just so he doesn’t go anywhere.

 

\---

 

Wet.

They run back home drenched from the downpour they got caught in, but it’s almost a mile from the nearest underground station.

Kili is a ball of energy starting right from the stairs which he takes at the rate of two steps at the time.

“Shower, showeeeerr,” he hisses, teeth chattering, shaking hands fumbling with the keys until Fili wants to take them from his hands in the interest of letting them in sooner.

But Kili manages in the end and falls through the door, making the bee-line straight for the bathroom at the end of the hallway, boots, coat, soggy jeans and all, leaving Fili to once again stand around dripping water all over the foyer floor.

There are few things Fili hates more in the world than being cold and wet.

His (Kili’s) jacket is waterlogged, and he isn’t sure if he should hang it on the coat hanger, or find a bucket for it. He hangs it, just for the time being, to free up his hands so he can kneel and unlace his boots.

It only takes a step or two out of them for Fili to hiss in displeasure as he steps into a mini-puddle left on the floor by an equally dripping Kili.

A cold, wet sock. Ick.

“Cold, cold, cold, cold,” comes from the bathroom, and soon a soothing sound of water against the tiles can be heard, suggesting that Kili managed to wrangle their shower into obedience and was probably waiting for the water to get properly hot for them.

Now annoyed, shivering, and not entirely certain what to do with the rest of his dripping person, Fili decides to move into the kitchen for now, where at least there are tiles, which will be much easier to mop up later.

Sink. Sink will do excellently for now, Fili decides, reaching for his hair and wringing it tightly over it, so it stops soaking his back. His t-shirt comes off next, pulled over his head and dumped unceremoniously also into the sink.

“Jesus Fili, you are freezing!”

Fili actually yelps at the icy hands on his not-quite-icy lower tummy when Kili wraps himself around him and with unerring accuracy goes for his belt and fly. They have some experience in this area and a luke-warm kiss to Fili’s shoulder is not entirely unwelcome, although Fili would much rather progress already to getting warm.

Hands – hips – urgent shove down – and he’s standing with his pants around his ankles and that just won’t do if he’s the only one. Little whirl later and a push on his toes and he’s got Kili pinned against the sink, getting him distracted with a proper kiss while Fili’s hands expertly open Kili’s pants as well. An insistent tug and Kili sheds his jacket into the sink and his shirt joins it a moment later, pulled by Fili’s hands.

It’s not the most suitable container but it will do.

“Into t-the shower,” Kili pushes them both, stepping out of their discarded garments. “It will be hot by n-now.”

He’s half way down the hallway before Kili remembers – “damn it, socks!”, and nearly trips over trying to simultaneously pull them off and continue hopping in the general direction of the heavenly, steamy bathroom.

Fili just shakes his head and gives up on trying to be somehow logical about this, instead simply toeing his own socks off, leaning against the doorframe. He will make Kili give him a hand mopping up this trail of chaos and destruction later.

And if his position does give him a rather good view of Kili’s bouncing backside, if he leans a little to watch it longer, nobody needs to know.

 

\---

 

It takes courage to ask for what he wants.

The little coffee van is Kili’s favourite place for hot drinks. Especially on cold days, he’ll stop and get them both a heavenly smelling cup (his own full of aromatic spices and perhaps some flavoured syrup; Fili’s – plain, no sugar, but lots of milk). They stop and Kili chatters more _at_ Luciano than _with_ him, the friendly little Italian man having lost his voice on the day of the Great Silence. They sign their thanks and walk back side by side, sipping the hot deliciousness.

Until one day Fili spots a hand-written scrap of paper attached to the counter.

He stares at it for a long moment, but then the drinks arrive and they leave just like always, admiring the sweet smell of spring blossoms in the air.

Fili gets all the way to the flat; he takes off his light jacket and sits down in the kitchen, not really hearing Kili, as he finishes his coffee. With the last of the flavour on his tongue the decision is made.

“I’ll be back,” he calls out, rushing outside, completely forgetting the jacket.

Luciano smiles, seeing him again, but tilts his head in a question.

Feeling half way between desperate and determined, Fili reaches for a napkin and quickly scribbles, ‘you’re looking to hire a help. Part time?’

A nod.

‘Would you consider me?’

‘Can you make a half-decent cup of coffee?’ appears on the little visio-keyboard projector that Luciano keeps permanently on top of the counter for communicating with his customers.

Fili points towards the inside of the van, signing a question. A moment later he’s reaching for various containers and cups, pressing buttons and willing his hands to be steady.

He’s never been a barista, but while Kili chattered, Fili watched Luciano’s every move, memorised where the spices live, how to froth the milk and that the caramel sauce needs to go along the inside edges of the cup. It wasn’t even intentional. It was just something Fili did.

Little cardboard sleeve, a napkin and he’s sliding it carefully along the counter towards the Italian.

‘Passable,’ appears on the Vi-Key, but it’s accompanied by a benevolent smile. ‘It’s only Saturdays and Sundays - you’ll be on your own from noon until 6 - and one evening in the week. Don’t know which one yet, need to find out granddaughter’s schedule for this year.’

Fili nods, heart hammering in his chest. He’s got no idea if he’ll be able to cope with this – other people mostly, casually putting him in the centre of their attention for the brief period it takes to make a coffee. But it’s perfect, and Kili, relentless with his smiles and unnerving enthusiasm, has made him brave.

Luciano’s coffee van is a stone’s throw from home and limited hours will get allow him a gentle introduction into the world of professional work. And the money – he’d like to say that he doesn’t care about the money, but he’s been homeless for so long that he’s got no illusions about how important money is.

‘Alright then. On one condition,’ Luciano types, looking at him thoughtfully.

He signs a question, suddenly nervous again.

‘You’ll need to learn to smile a hell of a lot more, Fili.’

Fili blinks, then as if on cue, he does indeed smile. After all, he’s got Kili for that sort of thing and they’re working on it.

 

\---

 

It’s almost distressing how easily Fili falls in love, how he starts to trust.

By now Kili feels safe and Fili feels safe around him, there’s no denying that.

Sometimes at night he brushes the backs of his fingers along Kili’s cheekbones, marvels at those thick, long lashes, casting shadow onto his skin.

It’s been weeks since their first kiss over the fast-flowing waters near Kili’s home town, and with each passing day they become braver, bolder, closer.

The little giggle comes to the surface without Fili’s permission, born just of the sheer, dumb happiness. He runs the pad of his thumb over Kili’s lover lip, then slowly bridges the distance between them and steals a soft little kiss for himself.

“Sleep, idiot,” comes a quiet snort.

“I want to kiss you,” he demands petulantly.

“You just have.”

“Not like this.”

Soft, dark eyes blink themselves open slowly to stare into his soul. “Then how, exactly, would you like to kiss me?”

“I want to kiss you like I love you,” he says slowly, watching those soft lips. “So you’d know how it feels. So you’d want to kiss me back. I want to kiss you like you’re mine and I’m yours.”

There’s a thoughtful little hum and then fingers sink into his hair to massage his scalp and tug him lower to claim his prize.

They tease each other for a moment, lips brushing, not quite meeting, but then it’s on, tongues sliding together and quiet little noises of approval.

The following morning Fili wakes up warm, comfortable and more at ease with himself than he ever remembers being. Kili’s fingers have found their way under the hem of his t-shirt and are dancing in lazy patterns along his spine causing little shivers of pleasure, oblivious of how shocking it feels for Fili to have that little reaction brought on.

Instead, Kili is all smiling eyes and little kisses to Fili’s shoulder, as he says “you snore, did you know that?”

“I guess it never mattered before,” he murmurs, sounding hoarse with sleep.

A smile. “I don’t mind. You also talk in your sleep. Just a little.”

Fili freezes, every muscle locked in panic. What did he say? What did Kili hear?

“Hey,” Kili frowns, his hand switching to reassuring circles. “No, don’t be scared. It was just fragments, words. I didn’t understand any of it. I love you.”

He makes himself take a breath and exhale it slowly, then nods.

“Fili.” Lips brushing along his temple. “I _love_ you. Please.”

“I love you too,” he says, watching Kili’s face carefully for any hints of displeasure. Instead he just looks sad when he pulls Fili into a tight hug and holds him – for minutes, hours, Fili isn’t sure.

 

\---

 

“Coming to the Centre to have some emotionally dead person declare that ‘the tests have all come back negative, we’re sorry’, and be given a handful of ‘reading material’, at the age of thirteen, _especially_ only in the first year since its opening, is about the most cruel thing one can do to a child.”

Taking long exposure photographs of the beautiful creek has a wonderful benefit of having Kili alone, in secluded spots for prolonged periods of time, allowing him to gather his thoughts and organise them into just the right sized bites of information. It’s only a little job for the local tourist board, barely in the next state over, but it’s a week away from home, on their own terms.

“Mum was wailing; dad was quiet and grim, which was perhaps even worse. They were one of those legendary soulmate marriages, even after the Great Silence. Around us people were fighting for survival. Screaming without a sound, attacking staff, lashing out at everyone in their path. I watched them and understood that I was one of them. But I didn’t believe it. Not yet. Not back then.”

Kili takes his hand then and rests his head against Fili’s shoulder. He doesn’t interrupt or encourage, doesn’t press him for details. And so slowly, word after word, Fili allows his soul to trickle out through the cracks.

 

\---

 

His first ever earned money turns out to be a little credit bead fastened securely by Luciano on the bracelet around Fili’s wrist.

He has plans for this money, keeps toying with it all the way back from the coffee van, but stops abruptly passing their local florist. There, in the corner of a lavishly decorated display window, sits a little colourful bunch of cut freesias.

He hesitates for a moment, presses his forehead to the cool glass and closes his eyes, before taking a deep breath and stepping inside.

 

\---

 

“Will you… Could you come somewhere with me?” Three months ago he would have felt completely inadequate asking the question, but by now Kili said ‘yes’ enough times for him to believe that it’s okay to ask.

“Of course,” sure enough Kili agrees, getting up from his desk and stretching thoroughly, until his joints pop. “Where are we off to?”

“Somewhere I haven’t been for a very long time,” Fili murmurs, reaching out a hand to take Kili’s.

So far Fili has taken Kili with him to various government offices, when he felt like he couldn’t possibly deal with yet another beaurocratic obstacle alone, to a lake in another part of the city when Kili felt like he might crawl out of his skin waiting to see if he could go on the next shoot he really wanted, to a soup kitchen, where they helped feed countless Voiceless, many of whom were Fili’s friends, back to the horse sanctuary – 3 times, and to the hairdressers when Kili’s fringe kept falling in his eyes.

But this was going to be different.

 

\---

 

This part of the cemetery is older, with its unusual nowadays, regimented marble ‘chicken hutches’.

Fili has to kneel to be able to touch the faded letters spelling out the names of his parents, only two rows above the ground. But the freesias look beautiful in the vase, even among their bleak, impersonal surroundings.

“Mum would have loved those.”

Kili kneels next to him, then shifts to sit cross-legged on the lush green grass as if it was the most natural thing to do. “What happened?” he asks simply.

“There was an accident. The autopilot malfunctioned in their car. Mum was gone pretty much instantly, dad… I don’t think he could find his way back without her. At least not for me. So instead he followed her, four days later.”

He blinks, feeling a tear sliding down his cheek and then again when he realises that two of them are running down Kili’s cheeks.

He hasn’t cried since he was a teenager.

“I’m sorry,” comes Kili’s choked off voice and it’s a sheer impulse when he reaches out an arm to hug him tightly. “It’s just so damn unfair.”

No, _fairness_ hasn’t featured in Fili’s life for a good many years now, but he’s shocked at how hurt and angry Kili sounds on his behalf. Shocked at his own tears, so many years later, and that he’s able to do this at all, to bring his One to the grave of his parents.

He kisses the top of Kili’s messy head and lets him sniff loudly into the fabric of Fili’s jumper.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he whispers right in Kili’s ear, softly, so softly, and he means it – it hurts to see him like this. _I didn’t mean to make myself cry either_ , he doesn’t say. “They would have liked you. Mum was a painter, you would have chattered her ear off about composition and light. Artistic types that you are,” he chuckles and is rewarded with a wet-sounding snort.

“Tell me about them?” Kili asks and Fili realises it’s the first time ever – normally Kili always gives him space to share whatever he feels ready to share.

But he feels ready now.

The words flow naturally for once, with ease that Fili never experienced before. About his childhood, about how he lost his voice, the special school they sent him to after, how he kept running away. His parent’s accident, various foster families, more escapes and how he used to half-live at the cemetery for a while. A bit about the streets, not much.

They sit there, propped against the next block of chicken hutches for hours, holding hands and leaning into each other.

Kili says little, mostly listens and just _is_ there for Fili, with Fili, throughout the whole story.

He feels exhausted by the end of it, emotionally wiped out, completely open and vulnerable. He never had the chance to tell anybody, but he also thought he didn’t need it.

But now, with Kili leaning in to press their foreheads together and wiping away the tears from his cheeks, he finally understands how much of a gift a One is, how that Bond is something that could never be replaced.

They walk back home hand in hand, closer than they have ever been.

 

\---

 

The next morning Fili sleeps in, feeling like his eyes are full of sand and his mind is a calm sea table. When finally, close to noon, Kili slips back into their bed Fili simply lifts his arm to allow him so curl up into his favourite spot.

They nap a bit more, then have raspberry tea and some fresh mangoes, because they can. They kiss, they stay together for a while simply breathing in synch, they share a long, hot shower and pad still damp into the kitchen, in search of some sorely-needed food.

There is no difference between what _normal people_ do and what Fili does.

He has a place in this home.

He has a place in Kili’s heart.

He can do anything he likes with the rest of his life.

He will never again end up on the street.

That life is over.

 

\---


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that worked out more wordy than the usual Silence bits, but it needed out of my head.
> 
> Also, we have jumped a few years ahead in the Silence Verse.

 

 

“What’s the word for more than love but less than lust?” Fili asks one super-early morning, wrapped around Kili completely, one hand roaming the contour of his hip, the plane of his stomach, the other tucked under the pillow under his head.

“Desire,” Kili tries, surprising Fili with a response.

“That’s just physical,” he wrinkles his nose.

“No, actually, ‘desire’ suggests also an emotional connection.”

Fili humms. Kili has a point, but – “I need a different one.”

A chuckle. “You’re hard to please this morning.”

“You’re hard to describe.”

“The air of mystery is a part of my sex-appeal.”

That makes Fili smile.

They fall into a comfortable silence, during which Fili’s lips find a way to taste Kili’s skin, his eyes slipping closed, thoughts diving deeper.

It must be somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m. in the morning and they have hours yet before they need to be anywhere or even think about getting up.

Back when he used to live on the streets, it was Fili’s favourite time of the day and he loves it still. He loves that brilliant absolute stillness and quiet about the city that cannot be described, can only be _felt_ , loves the sense of solitude, the peace. A million souls, and each and every single one of them asleep, wrapped in the safety of their home, the comfort of their bed and the quiet care of their loved ones.

A ghost town open wide for Fili to roam, finally free from judgement, watching the colourful displays, crossing even the busiest intersections without so much as a pause and waving hello to the men delivering papers.

Fili’s city. Just for him.

Slowly, sun would raise, saturating grey concrete with colour, painting windows in bright oranges and pinks and Fili would blink against all that brilliance.

And then, having had enough of his city, he’d go back to wrap himself once again in his worn sleeping bag and curl up somewhere a little bit sheltered. He’d drift off into sleep to the sounds of the first steps rushing somewhere, always rushing, first busses and early morning taxis; city’s heartbeat picking up in strength.

He liked sleeping through it: the morning rush hour, people’s obligations, all of them sinking into their routines. Later, when it gets warmer and calmer again, he’d venture out to see if he could scrounge up some breakfast, but the rush hour was a time Fili happily left to others.

But that was then and now is now.

Now Fili is one of those ghosts, wrapped up in warm sheets and the smell of Kili, with dreams and aspirations and hope. And although the character of Kili’s job rarely means that he has places to be, at least not while he’s in the country, they will need to get up at a half decent time.

After all, there’s only a month left before the deadline for Fili’s second book and Kili is working on a series of photographs which are due next week.

It’s at that moment that Kili stirs and rolls over so he can curl up into the crook of Fili’s arm. He likes closeness, likes intimacy and the feeling of Fili’s sturdy frame against him. He will never say as much, but always settles down once he gets what he wants and Fili loves him too much to point it out or deny him. He shifts a fraction to get better access to the slumbering form and sink his fingers into the dark tresses.

Kili sleeps with his hair tied back in a loose pony-tail so it doesn’t tickle him around the face, and it’s part mischief, part this strange feeling between love and lust for which Fili hasn’t yet discovered a suitable word that drive him to tug his hairband free.

He runs his fingers through the liberated strands and presses them deeper so he can scratch his blunt nails along Kili’s scalp.

It earns him a little breathy noise, a bit like a snorted moan.

A bit more then.

Kili has woken him enough times with the sounds of his own moans for Fili to learn how to return the favour.

“Fee.” Tiny and saturated with annoyed contentment.

He gives a little scratch just behind the ear.

“Fee!” A hand finds its way under Fili’s worn t-shirt and starts toying with the soft, crinkly hair it finds there because Kili _will_ retaliate, usually when Fili has him close to moaning.

Pleasure.

‘Pleasure’ is also somewhere there within that nebulous concept he’s trying to find the word for. ‘Affection’ too, he thinks, feeling Kili’s smile pressed into his skin as his fingers move to massage the nape of Kili’s neck.

“You want to do something about this?” Kili asks sleepily, sounding like he has no intention of doing anything at all.

“No, I want to keep you like this.”

“It’s not nice to tease me, you know.”

“I’m not teasing. I’m experimenting with a feeling.”

“Well, experiment on yourself then!”

“I can’t. I only ever feel like this when it’s about you.”

Soft, sleepy brown eyes peer at him from between an unruly fringe, but soon slide closed once again, giving in to the gentle pressure of Fili’s fingers.

“I love you too, Fee. But it’s too early for riddles,” he says quietly, without a bite.

Fili kisses his wild hair. “So sleep. I’ll be right here, pondering the riddle in my arms and keeping bad dreams at bay.”

“Giving me filthy ones instead, more like,” a quiet snort. “Besides, you can’t be trusted with that mind of yours.”

“I have manged to cope with it just fine for the past 29 years, you know.”

“And it’s made you prone to melancholy and far too rational for your own good.”

Fili is ready to protest, but his lips get besieged and then conquered by Kili’s and somehow he ends up wondering what that thing between love and lust is called once again.

“Remember how I told you I used to do freelance work for a time?” Kili murmurs right by his ear, warm weight comfortable along his right side. “I used to do quite a lot of wedding photography once. Under a pseudonym though, because you put that on your professional portfolio and suddenly from a serious wildlife photographer you somehow turn into some sort of Sunday enthusiast whom nobody takes seriously.”

That warrants a kiss, because damn the unreasonable world of professional photography.

“The one thing,” Kili continues, “that used to give me advantage over other photographers and kept the jobs coming was that I would guarantee that the photos be available by 7 a.m. the following morning. Photography nowadays is all about instant gratification – everyone wants to know just what their wedding looked like immediately. As if they could re-do the whole thing if it wasn’t up to scratch. They want those perfect shots for their WebID, want tangible proof that what was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives, was indeed perfect. And they are not willing to wait 3-5 working days to get it.”

That warrants another kiss, because damn all those impatient, greedy people. It also warrants a bit of a re-shuffle so he can spoon behind Kili, and rescue his right arm, which is going to sleep.

“But of course nobody’s wedding photos end up perfect of their own accord. For starters, if there are children present, they will photobomb at least 20% of all snaps taken. Then there are unfortunate angles making various bits of the bride or bridesmaids wider than they have any right to be. Wine stains towards the end of the night, overly-rosy cheeks or red eyes in low lighting, all of which needs to magically disappear. Not to mention getting it all transferred and uploaded from the camera, the selection process, removing duplicates, organising it into folders, or applying watermarks.”

Fili can’t kiss Kili at this angle so instead makes a quiet little noise at the back of his throat to indicate that he’s listening, even if his eyes are sliding closed of their own accord.

“So I used to stay up all night and work on the shots I’d taken, patiently picking all the best ones, slightly enhancing contrast or saturation, erasing stray hair sticking out at odd angles and so on. It feels different, working at night. You can practically _feel_ everyone around you asleep until the silence becomes tangible like this force bearing down on you from all angles. It’s oppressive to the point where it interferes with your concentration until all you can focus on is the quiet ticking of the clock, seconds, minutes, hours stretching into aeons. I would leave the flat then, just for a quick walk round the block to break the spell.”

“It feels like loneliness when you’re outside. Like loneliness and freedom all wrapped up into one,” Fili supplies and pulls his One closer, flush, to feel his warmth, his breaths and the bulk of his body.

“It’s funny how we all seem to just want to conform when we can’t,” Kili responds, and there’s a hint of a smile laced through his voice. “I’d finish around 6 a.m., email off the gallery link and the password to the client and stand in my kitchen, eyes aching, cold coffee mug in my hands, watching the sun rise. I used to rent back then in another part of town, and that was the only window that had any view of the sky.”

“And now…” it rolls off Fili’s tongue quiet and lazy and hangs between the two of them for a moment.

“And now I have you,” Kili huffs theatrically, obvious in his teasing. "Now we choose to mutter in the dark instead of enjoying a perfect lie-in." 

“Yearning.”

“Hm?”

“More than love, less than lust.”

“Still?” Kili rolls over then and somehow Fili knows that he’s searching his face, while his arms close around him in a protective embrace.

“Always. But it’s okay, doesn’t hurt any more. Just keeps me awake at ungodly hours.” He grins, not bothering to open his eyes. “Sleep, Kili. And I’ll try to sleep too.”

He feels fingers in his hair, brushing the twisting blond strands away from his face with infinite gentleness and tilts his head into fingertips sliding into his hairline. He smiles, when the kiss he was expecting materialises against his lips and allows himself to ease back into his wandering thoughts when Kili whispers: “You’ll always have me, Fili.”

‘And you’ll have me,’ he replies, or maybe just thinks the words at Kili, he isn’t sure. But then again, Kili should know by now, or use telepathy if he has any doubts, because surely Fili has given him enough of his heart and mind for him to have free reign of both.

He’s slipping away slowly, trying to keep the one word that took him so long to figure out, ‘yearning’, for the morning. Maybe Kili will remember it for him; or maybe they will work it out again, together.

There is a certain obscene pleasure in being able to just curl up in the warmth and go back to sleep, without a care in the world, not having to worry about the time or whether there will be food.

His last thought before sleep claims it all, is that it’s not really Silence, if he can hear Kili’s breaths next to him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Theimpossiblelostdreamer on Tumblr as a part of 'happy/light-hearted prompts'. Ummm... not too sure it worked out happy or light-hearted but here we are...
> 
> THIS CHAPTER DEALS WITH FEAR OF CLOWNS AND BALLOONS - PLEASE NOTE IN CASE THIS IS TRIGGERRING FOR YOU.

 

Having a One isn’t the same as being in love.

When Fili and Kili first meet, they’re strangers. There’s a spark of attraction and the odd impulse to protect each other, but it’s nothing like the fireworks exploding behind their eyelids or other such nonsense often described by others.

It takes months for Fili to realise that his first reactions were normal and he didn’t do anything wrong.

The practicalities of their situation hit them hard and fast – first when Fili is shot and has to be rushed into a hospital, then as they painstakingly lay down the ground rules of living together without sending Fili running for the hills again.

In a way it’s the reverse of what most couples go through – everyday life before the honeymoon phase.

But Kili is determined that they shouldn’t miss out, just because of how they met.

They _deserve_ to be happy, deserve to fall in love, completely, irrevocably, head-over-heels in love; Fili more so than anyone else Kili knows. His face is like a thunder cloud when he tells him as much, until Fili is forced to give him a loop-sided little smile and a tentative nod.

‘Dating’ isn’t something that comes to Fili naturally, at least not at first. To him, getting to know Kili is a process that started when Kili offered his spare bedroom and continues with every brush of one personality against the other. It’s only later that he will translate a concept of a ‘date’ more into ‘making memories’ together, something bright, precious and fun.

He falls in _peace_ with Kili at first, rather than love. In exchange he offers silences which are friendly now, attention and a little bit of closeness.

When several months later he catches himself _wanting_ to do something special for Kili, time and time again, it isn’t quite the shocking reveal he was expecting. He’s tired of fighting for himself and for the first time Fili considers letting life do with him as it pleases. It doesn’t seem such a terrible fate when it’s Kili who has a tenuous grasp on his heart and his hands are gentle, oh so gentle and steady.

Love, or whatever it is that they’re falling in this time, feels soothing and _right_ , more so than anything else he remembers. There is now a balance to what they have and Kili needs him just as much as he needs Kili.

It’s that final piece that puts the puzzle together for Fili.

In reality, he thinks they fall in love not quite on any of their dates, but rather somewhere between cooking together, Kili’s chatter about his travels, Fili’s quiet little stories from his childhood, among the sheets, as they fall asleep tangled together and during that one horrible week when they’re on the opposite ends of the world and connected only by the crackling voices over a satellite phone.

But even after Fili leans in for that first magical kiss, and then the second, when his scarred heart learns the rhythm of _’yes, yes, yes, now’_ , when impatient hands tug away clothes and lips find sensitive spots, when they cry out in pleasure and curl up into each other, smug but seeking safety all the same, they don’t see any reason to stop going on dates.

Why would they? They’ve fallen in love now and they want to share all of the silly romantic clichés in the world.

And that’s why one sunny autumn Saturday finds them at a travelling funfair, recently sprung up on the outskirts of their city.

They may be grown men, but it sure as hell doesn’t stop them holding hands or stealing tufts of bright pink candy floss from each other. They have learned to laugh now, so they do – over and over again: when Fili rams Kili’s bumper car and sends him spinning for a good two minutes, on the roller coaster, which takes a terrifying twisty-turn upside down, making Fili jump out almost before their little cart comes to a stop, or as they make their way through the Tunnel of Horrors, which only serves to send them giggling as each new automated monstrosity is revealed.

It’s all going well, until they decide to get some chips from the little van serving hot food.

One moment Fili’s dipping a gloriously thick-cut chip in some ketchup on their little cardboard tray, next moment Kili yelps, throwing the whole thing up in the air.

“Where the fuck did that clown come from?!” Somehow his One is behind him in an instant, his fingers curled in a death grip on Fili’s shoulders.

The clown in question appears to have joined the queue for hot food and is currently staring at them in confusion only emphasised by his stark make-up.

“Kili?”

Kili doesn’t respond. Instead there’s a quiet whimper and he tries to make himself look smaller so he can hide behind Fili’s back. He’s shaking.

Fili acts because everything he knows, everything he _is_ tells him to act.

“Kili, look at me.” Spinning them round so Kili is standing with his back to the clown is easy with the way the other man seems paralysed.

“No, he’s right –“

“He’s not moving from his spot Kili, I’m watching him,” Fili pulls his jacket off and throws it over Kili’s head without a second thought. “Still there, don’t look.”

Kili nods and tries to slink further into the jacket that hides him, but the warmth, Fili’s familiar smell and the soft texture of fur along the jacket’s collar seem to give him a little courage. “S-sorry, I’m making a scene…”

“I don’t care,” Fili tells him simply and it’s the truth.

“Don’t let him get any c-closer!”

“I won’t, I promise.” Blue eyes searching brown. “Just look at me, Kili, breathe with me.”

“There was this film when I was little. I k-know I shouldn’t have watched it, it was late, but I was wide awake and I s-snuck out of my room and watched through the balusters. It had clowns in it and they were –“

The kiss isn’t anything passionate or overly involved; just a simple press of lips against lips as Fili pushes up on his toes, exactly enough to derail Kili’s spinning thoughts.

“Let’s get out of here, yeah?” He’s got his hands on Kili’s waist now, can feel them trying to steady the tremors. “He’s a bit to the side now, waiting for his hot dog and playing on his phone. He’s not even looking here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. No, don’t turn around.” He holds Kili’s hips firmly in place when his One tries to twist to take a look.

“Sorry.”

“Hey. Hey, no. Kili.” Their faces are now practically level, since his Kili is doing his best to try and shrink. Fili doesn’t think when he pulls him into a hug. “I won’t let him hurt you. I won’t let anything hurt you,” he murmurs, feeling Kili’s body loosen up a fraction against his own. “You’re my One, Kili. You saved me and I’ll save _you_ , if the need arises. Do you trust me?”

A shaky nod.

“Think you can follow me?”

“Don’t –“

“No, I won’t. Together.” He takes a step backwards between the tall tables, keeping his hands firmly on Kili’s waist to coax him along. “You’ll tell me if I’m about to walk into something, right?”

“I will. Is he following us?”

“No, he’s eating his hot dog.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

One more step, then another. They make it to the main path and people spill around them like a river. Fili keeps leading them away, glancing over his shoulder from time to time to see where he’s going.

He feels – oddly brave and kind of invincible right now, the need to protect spilling over as he tries to soothe the man he loves. Kili should never be this afraid again.

“It’s safe now, he’s gone,” he tells the wide, dark eyes watching his face like holds all the answers. They are two stands further along the path, a bit to the side to allow others to pass.

“Thank you,” he gets a smile, but a pale ghost of Kili’s usual beaming ones, as he pulls off the jacket and passes it back to Fili. ”It’s silly, I know. I understand that it’s just a costume, but for some reason –“

“It’s not silly, it’s a phobia. I don’t like balloons, myself.”

“Balloons?”

“Yeah, balloons. They’re awful, all round and rubbery, pumped up like that, ready to pop at any moment with an entirely unnecessary bang. Little time bombs, waiting to go off,” a mere thought makes him scrunch up his nose.

“Fili.”

“Hm?”

“This place is full of balloons.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Then why didn’t you _say_ something?!”

“You were having fun. Actually, _I_ was having fun too, before the painted guy showed up.”

Kili’s fierce expression softens at the admission. “But you’re not comfortable here. We could have had fun somewhere else. Somewhere where you don’t have to be on your guard all the time.”

“My phobia isn’t as bad as yours and you kind of… take up most of my attention, so I wasn’t paying it any mind. So long as I don’t have to touch them, they keep their distance and I keep mine, nobody needs to get hurt,” Fili grins and watches peace trickle back into Kili’s eyes. “I won’t blame you if you want to go home now, but I still enjoyed today.”

They press foreheads for a moment, oblivious of the masses of people around them. It’s okay now, they have weathered the storm together.

“We can’t go home,” Kili informs him sternly, looking mildly mutionous.

“We can’t?”

“No. Because then I will have ruined our date.”

“You didn’t ruin – “

“How do you feel about botanical gardens? They’re not a million miles away, we could easily walk the distance.”

“I like botanical gardens.” They re-join the steady stream of people and let it carry them towards one of the gates.

“Hey, did you know that ours are among the oldest on the East Coast?”

“I did. Did you know that they’re one of the very few buildings in the city that remain open to public even in the dead of winter and maintain a steady temperature of 30 degrees inside?”

Kili wraps an arm loosely around his waist and Fili returns the gesture as they stroll outside the gates, unconsciously matching their step.

 

\---


	4. Chapter 4

 

They are coming back from the office – an uneventful trip, except they make the mistake of leaving just before the rush hour so the tube is packed. With only a single seat between them Kili takes it, only to tug at Fili’s wrist immediately, making him sit rather heavily in his lap.

He looks like the cat that got the cream.

Fili in turn looks… he tries not to look at any single face around him for too long and resorts to rolling his eyes and wrapping an arm around Kili’s shoulders for better balance.

They are just coming up the stairs to their apartment, bickering about whether olives have any right to grace the top of a pizza, when a pair of heavy army-style boots comes to view, followed by the rest of a rather square teenager in ripped jeans and a leather jacket with studs, sitting on the floor against the front door to their flat.

Fili stops mid-sentence, his lips forming a thin line.

“Oh! Hello there,” Kili tries.

The teenager gives him The Look, the one that in a single glance somehow conveys that he’s been judged, deemed unworthy, and if Kili disagrees, he’s welcome to discuss it with the teen’s fists.

“And, ah –“ Kili risks a glance towards Fili, his defensive body language telegraphing that he’s uncomfortable and a little bit of prodding might help discharge the whole situation, “- who might that be?”

“This is Gimli, my cousin.” Blue eyes stay fixed firmly on the hunched figure.

“Oh, nice to meet you, Gimli. I’m Kili. Would you like to come in?”

“Gimli is in the mafia.”

“He – what?!”

The teen moves to get up, opening his mouth to interrupt, but Fili will not be interrupted. “Incidentally, a rival gang to the one that very nearly shot you dead not so long ago. Gimli was just leaving.” His voice is completely devoid of any emotion and that scares Kili far more than a potentially volatile teen at his door.

“But he’s… your _family_. You can’t just send him away!”

“If you let him in, he will most likely rob you. At the moment the only advantage we have is that we’re in the hallway. A commotion here would attract unwelcome attention.”

“Now come on, Fee! I didn’t come here to rob you or your _boyfriend_.”

Fili’s expression doesn’t change and he makes no attempt to respond.

“Well in that case, perhaps we _could_ take this inside –“

“No.”

“I didn’t even know you lived here, I swear. The people outside finally told me after I spent nearly two hours searching for you.”

“Gimli knew that I lived on the streets, you see,” Fili picks up almost conversationally. “He never acknowledged this fact before or made any attempt to help me, not even when things got really tough. Neither did his father, Gloin for that matter. So you see, my attachment to my so called _family_ isn’t very strong.” He’s talking to Kili of course, but absolutely _at_ Gimli.

“I tried, I swear!” the teen’s registry is taking on a higher, more defensive tones. “I asked them time and time again. I didn’t think it was fair, how they treated you, but you know how Thorin gets –“

“Thorin?” Kili interjects, trying to keep up.

“My uncle. My mother’s brother. Also, the Godfather, so to speak.”

“You _dumped_ the goods _into the fucking river!_ ”

“Yeah. I did. Three kilograms of cocaine.”

“You wouldn’t cooperate!”

“First heard that line when Thorin had Dwalin beat me half to death.”

“Come on! We did ask nicely the first dozen times or so!”

“And I told them to go to hell. So you can see Kili, how Dwalin’s knuckles were likely to make me change my mind.”

“You had _no one_ , Fili. Nothing to your name. What did you think you were going to do? You can’t outrun your family name forever.”

“My mum managed to outrun her family name pretty well, actually. In fact, I didn’t know any family existed until quite a while after their accident. Until I was old enough to involve me in the family business, until I could be useful to them. Of course, mum had dad. But then I have you so…” it’s the first time Fili looks directly at Kili when he says, “so I thought I’d give it a go.”

Kili feels like he’s stepped into a heavy artillery shooting range. Surely, it can’t all be true? It’s the sort of thing that Karl Urban investigates on one of those ancient, seedy crime dramas of old.

“Look, I _tried_ , alright? You can believe me or not, I don’t care. Thorin doesn’t even know that I’m here and I made sure I wasn’t followed,” the teen growls, making Kili marvel at the same iron self-control as Fili has, despite his hands locking into fists. “I didn’t come here to argue. And for the record, I’m no longer in any fucking _mafia_!”

Silence. A quiet challenge from Fili but he doesn’t try to communicate the question in any other way. He’s making a point.

“I’m in college now, actually,” the kid continues, quieter now, deflated. “We’re moving to Montana; dad and I. He’s cut almost all ties. Mom… mom got pulled. In Congo.”

That makes Fili draw a sharp breath and close his eyes. “Ask him what her cargo was,” he says and it speaks volumes that he’s reverting back to the most basic of third-party communication techniques.

“Emeralds,” the response comes as a whisper now, in stark contrast to the bitter exchange between them moments ago. “I thought they were on fucking holidays.”

“So essentially she was smuggling blood diamonds.”

“Thorin says they can get her out. If she’s transported into this other facility…”

Fili doesn’t respond and it’s perhaps the hardest silence between them yet.

“Anyway,” Gimli clears his throat, breaking the eye-contact first. “I actually came to say goodbye. You’re my only non-business family,” he gives them a loop-sided grin.

Fili watches him for a long while, in that way of his that makes people feel like he’s staring right into their very soul.

“And I wanted to give you these –“ the kid continued, as a simple set of magnetic keys with a horribly scraped AC/DC keychain appears in his hand. “We’re keeping the house as an investment, although we’re not planning on coming back. I imagine it will be watched, but I thought perhaps you’d want to sneak in on the coldest of nights for a few days. Though I see now,” he hesitates, giving Kili another assessing look, “that perhaps you won’t need them after all.”

Fili gently shakes his head. The next movement is miniscule, but Kili feels his hand come to rest on top of his waist.

“Right,” Gimli scratches at the uneven scruff covering the lower part of his face. “Good for you. I better get going then. Dad thinks I’m picking up extra dog food.” He laughs and makes to push past them, but stops just short of the first step. “You know, I never heard your voice before, Fee. Not once. It was good to hear you before I go. You look… so fucking happy, man.”

Fili looks away then and Kili doesn’t know if he wants to offer support or shove him after his retreating cousin.

In the end Fili decides for himself, thundering down the stairs to the landing below only to haul Gimli into a tight hug that seems to startle the teenager. They stand like that for a long moment, an impossible distance of experiences away and hold on in ways which they are both only just beginning to understand.

Kili smiles and turns to unlock the door to their flat, leaving the two to say their goodbyes in any way they know how.

 

\---


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Written for WinterFRE2018, prompt #154: Somebody almost dies.**
> 
> I've had the idea for a while, but I'm pleased with the research I've done before writing it, which really allowed it to crystalise into a decent chapter with feels. :) Btw. look up the Amboseli National Park, Kenya if you have a moment. It's a truly stunning location!

 

Fili thinks Amboseli might just about be his favourite location in Africa yet.

With the dramatic backdrop of Mount Kilimanjaro, grassy savannah, interspersed with bushes and shady acacia trees, it’s teaming with life.

Although perhaps ‘teaming’ isn’t quite the right word just now, at the very end of the dry season, when animals desperately cling to life, searching for any last remnants of moisture in the vegetation.

Kili tells him that all this is about to change and explode into a brilliant symphony of a lush bonanza for everything that calls this place home, just as soon as the spectacular, violent storms arrive from the south. He knows what he’s talking about – he’s spent some time here before.

“A day, maybe two,” he assures, having spoken with the locals. “You’ll see, Fili. It’s amazing!”

Fili grins, now infected by Kili’s enthusiasm, and climbs into a battered four by four. He trusts his One implicitly and he loves those quiet days spent as Kili’s spotter, when he can have him all to himself with no distractions.

 

\---

 

He’s _delighted_ when it turns out they get a whole tree house all to themselves.

Fili isn’t fussy when it comes to accommodation, but a tree house means a flat floor on which they can stretch out to sleep, something like a roof over their head which they’re about to make waterproof with some tarpaulin, limited access for wild animals and, most importantly, far fewer ants.

“Don’t get too excited,” Kili smiles affectionately, watching Fili diligently cover the tree trunk in talcum powder to further ant-proof it. “It’s the mosquitoes and midges that will eat you alive out here.”

He outright laughs at a scowling look he gets from Fili and wordlessly passes him a tube of insect-repellent gel as a peace offering.

 

\---

 

They can _hear_ elephants in the area, but they can’t quite _see_ any of them yet.

Instead there’s a small group of impalas grazing happily among the bushes to their right and although the angle isn’t quite right, Kili’s camera goes off constantly with a barely audible ‘click click click’.

Fili meanwhile is watching a drongo.

The drongo, in turn, is watching him.

He thinks they might be building onto some sort of a bond, especially considering how intelligent the red-eyed birds are and how this particular drongo seems to be hanging out around the tree-house for a second day now.

He’s seen the drongos before of course, in the Kalahari – watched them trick meerkats into dropping their breakfast for the drongo to catch with a perfectly-imitated warning call.

He likes the cheeky little things, though he has no food the drongo might like.

“OWW!!” Kili’s sudden cry startles both the impalas and the bird. It’s so _unprofessional_ of Kili, whose furious focus normally allows him to block out everything else, Fili included sometimes, that his first reaction is somewhere between surprise and annoyance.

“You okay?” he asks automatically, moving towards his One, who’s writhing in obvious pain and rubbing his ass.

“Y-yeah,” Kili grinds out. “I think… something bit me.”

This finally makes Fili’s alarm bells go off – he scans the floor for any signs of spiders, scorpions, snakes – all those things he’s been briefed about before, but he can’t see anything.

“Uuuugh –“ Kili slides to his knees, clutching at his stomach.

“Kili?!”

“I don’t feel so g-“ he doesn’t get to finish, instead emptying the sad remnants of their breakfast over the low railing of the tree house.

On auto-pilot Fili moves to hold Kili’s hair out of the way and pass him a water bottle, as he dry-heaves once or twice more.

It’s only down low like this that Fili’s eyes land on the short log which Kili was using as a seat, where he spots a small black insect writhe helplessly, buzzing lowly.

A wasp. But then a wasp sting shouldn’t cause –

When Kili looks up again, his eyes are swelling and his breath is coming in short, wheezing gasps.

 

\---

 

He’s running through the bush as fast as his legs will carry him, thorny branches snagging his clothes, scratching at his skin, but in the unbelievable heat of the African sun, the weight of the body thrown across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry is draining his strength much faster than it should.

The jeep is about a mile away.

He stops for a moment before he keels over, bending low to try and catch his breath.

“Kili?”

No answer. Worse yet, Kili appears to have gone limp, and that, more than anything, makes Fili’s blood run cold, his legs moving again, even though his muscles are screaming in agony.

He takes off once more –

An elephant barrels through a small clearing in acacia trees right in front of him and comes to a sudden halt perhaps fifteen feet away at the same time as Fili. It’s a huge, old bull, with only half of one tusk left – a mountain of muscle and terrifying weight.

 _“Whatever you do, do_ not _startle an elephant. Only slow, easily-visible movements. They are prone to go into a stampede and then there’s no stopping them,”,_ he remembers Kili’s words.

Except now he just has.

He knew he was likely to run into some game out here, but he arrogantly hoped the animals would scatter before a human, he hoped that it wouldn’t be like a cheetah or a lion… And anyway, it’s not like Fili had any choice.

He wasn’t expecting to find himself face-to-face with a giant.

He trembles at a furious roar the elephant emits, understands all the signs as it rumbles low in warning and stomps the ground.

 _Get out of my way_.

Yet Fili stands his ground, heart beating so hard it feels like it might break free from his chest.

He knows (thinks) that if he backs away now, the bull will take it as a sign of his own advantage and might try to press it. If he moves forward, it will be an obvious challenge and the animal will surely charge.

The jeep is in the direction from which the elephant came.

And Kili – heavy across his shoulders – Kili needs help. Instantly. He doesn’t have time for this.

In a split second he’s made a decision - if the bull charges, Fili will try to throw Kili as far away from himself as he can. Two targets instead of one and it might just confuse the animal enough to slow it down or make it stop. Or if it doesn’t, at least it will take Kili out of harm’s way.

Fear makes it difficult to think, and harder still to _do_ anything and somewhere in the frantic mess of thoughts thrashing about in his head, one, hysterical almost, bubbles up to the surface: _pray_.

Because the creature in front of him is, in a sense, a god. It has a power of life or death over them and Fili desperately needs its help, its blessing.

He closes his eyes, tries to make himself into less of a threat.

 _Please,_ he thinks. _Kili is dying. I don’t know how to help him. He’s my One, and I don’t know what to do, except get help. Please, let me through._

Blue eyes open again to watch old, dark eyes watch him in turn.

It feels like he’s being judged, like perhaps _somehow_ , _impossibly_ the elephant might understand the desperate need to save one’s kin.

He thinks that if any animal is capable of understanding love, of seeing it in Fili’s eyes, it’s the elephant.

When there’s no more furious trumpeting, Fili’s legs take a tentative step to the side. It isn’t a conscious decision; it’s an instinct for which he has no words and an odd sort of silent dialogue with an animal which could kill them in an instant.

Slowly, he moves towards the edge of the clearing, Fili and the elephant circling each other, eyes locked.

He thinks of Kili’s laughter, kindness and what he looks like when he sleeps. Everything he wants to protect, everything he _needs_ to survive.

By the time he considers in how many ways Kili has saved him, they’ve slipped through the bushes and the bull has disappeared from view.

 

\---

 

It’s only once he eases Kili gently into the passenger’s seat that Fili is able to check that his One does indeed still have a pulse.

He swallows thickly, watching Kili’s face completely swollen by now and the short, sharp breaths drawn through pouted lips.

He stumbles around the car, into the driver’s seat, keys, ignition, gear, gas –

He’s not an experienced driver, but he goes over the bumpy, dusty dirt-track faster than he has ever gone on any road before.

 

\---

 

He doesn’t bother turning the engine off when he finally gets to the Amboseli Elephant Research Camp - their base of operations - just jumps out to haul Kili out of the car and run, carrying him curled up in his arms towards buildings, people, _anyone_ -

 _HEEELLLP!!_ he tries to scream, but no words come out.

He doesn’t understand, he doesn’t _want_ to understand –

_HEEELLLP!!_

That’s right, without Kili –

He doesn’t allow himself to finish the thought. Instead he grabs a metal pan discarded nearby and bangs it, as best as he can with both hands full, against the nearest solid thing he can find.

Make some noise, attract attention.

A startled face appears in one of the windows and Fili drops the pan, runs towards it, he needs to explain - _Kili needs help_ , a young woman runs towards them, _Kathy_ , he remembers, _I don’t know what to do, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO_ , somehow he needs to make her understand –

She takes one look at Kili’s face, wide eyes locking with Fili’s, and then she’s running away from them, gaining ground without the heavy burden of another body that Fili is carrying.

 _Come back!_ Fili thinks irrationally, tries to follow after her through a long corridor and what looks like a basic kitchen, then outside again, blinded for a moment by the bright sunshine after the shade of the building.

“Stoooop!!” Kathy screams over the sudden noise of the rotors, which slams into Fili like a solid wall of sound and some odd, rational part of Fili’s mind thinks that he’s never heard her speak before. She runs out in front of the chopper on a landing site just behind the base, waving her arms at the pilot, who looks about ready to take off.

In a fraction of a second Fili _understands_. He runs towards the chopper door, trying to stay low, trying to keep Kili safe with him, because if he can get him onto this transport, then his One might be saved.

Three startled faces – white, tourists – greet him when he places Kili on the helicopter floor, before climbing in after him.

Kathy is there a moment later, having shouted something in the pilot’s ear first. “He needs a doctor! You don’t mind a small detour through a hospital, do you?”

They shake their heads, and Fili feels a wave of gratitude at the mention of a hospital.

“It’s a 30 – 40 minute flight,” she tells him, before climbing back out and slamming the door shut.

 _I’m sorry,_ he wants to say, and - _thank you_.

But no words come out.

 

\---

 

Kili stops breathing somewhere in the sky over Nairobi.

Fili can see the hospital’s helipad in the distance when Kili starts trashing on the floor, before finally coming to lie perfectly still once again.

“KILI!” Fili screams, right there on the floor with him, then snarls and starts, as best as he can remember, a mouth-to-mouth procedure.

Someone pushes him away, taking over the heart massage, leaving Fili to desperately try and blow some air through Kili’s closed off throat into his lungs.

 

\---

 

Somehow there’s a stretcher waiting outside along with two of the personnel and Fili realises that the pilot must have radioed in ahead of their arrival.

 _HE’S NOT BREATHING!_ he shouts at them in his head, useless, while they take over the first aid, this time with an oxygen pump.

He signs _help_ , but realises immediately that having just arrived at the hospital it’s pretty obvious that Kili is in need of help, and he doesn’t know any signs for medical terms that might be of some use to the doctors.

Not to mention that he’s using the English sign language and his hands are shaking so bad, he doubts anyone would be able to read it anyway.

They’re in the elevator now -

Someone is firing a storm of questions at Fili, in a language he doesn’t understand – Sheng, probably – then Swahili, then finally in English: “What happen?!”

He should have grabbed the dying wasp, just stuck it in his pocket and he’d be able to show them, but he wasn’t thinking straight, because Kili was struggling for air and _oh God, how could he have been so stupid?! What if it requires a specific antidote for a sting from that particular species, whatifKilidiesbecauseofhim?!_

Someone slaps him across the face, hard.

“What happen?” a woman, short and stocky calmly repeats the question.

He has got no way to communicate. None.

_Not none._

They’re in what looks to be the main arrivals area now and Fili desperately throws himself towards the reception desk, while one of the staff stabs Kili’s thigh with an injection of some sort and pushes a pipe down his throat.

He grabs the nearest piece of paper – a file of some sort – then a pen and forces his hand to stop shaking for long enough to write: ‘WASP’.

Blank faces.

Fili wants to scream, he wants to scream so bad, and he’s never before hated being Voiceless so much in his life.

 _Not now_.

He picks up the pen once more and draws, shaky, basic, schematic, picture of a wasp, head, wings, stripy body, even though the one that stung Kili was completely black, should he colour it all in? Then the sting, circles it and points frantically at Kili.

“Nyuki,” she whispers, then repeats once more, louder this time: “nyuki!” and starts firing orders.

Another injection, now right into Kili’s chest, defibrillator -

Kili gasps and starts thrashing once more and Fili feels as if he was the one to have been zapped by electricity just now.

One more injection and they’re cuffing his One to the bed, because he’s reaching to try and pull the pipe out from his throat.

“Kili!!” he must reassure him, must help calm him down, must be there _with him_ , but strong arms are pulling him back and then the stretcher is wheeled away and doors close and Fili can’t get to his One anymore.

 

\---

 

Kili is unconscious, but stable and doctor’s biggest concern is the effect of lack of oxygen to his brain for such a long time.

That’s as much as Fili is able to decipher from the basic English explanation he’s been given.

He nearly died.

Fili’s thoughts circle around this one sentence like vultures over the carcass of his soul.

He nearly died.

He _did die_ and Fili very nearly wasn’t able to save him. It would have been his fault.

What would he have told Dis?

_Told?_

He doesn’t get to _say_ anything without Kili.

Voiceless. He’s Voiceless. He’s never stopped being one.

He never underestimated just in how many ways Kili saved him, but he never thought what it would have been like to lose him either. He never understood just how much his entire life came to revolve around Kili.

If Kili died, he would never ever utter another word to anyone again. He never had any high hopes for a One before, but having found Kili, he let himself get used to the luxury of it.

Kili’s fingerprint lock would still recognise Fili, so he could get in to his – to _Kili’s_ home, at least until they changed the locks and sold it off as his estate.

Dis –

He’d never show his face to Dis ever again. He doubts she would ever forgive him.

His job – even if could somehow make himself to stay in the area, his job is only part time and it wouldn’t be enough to support him.

His writing – how would he write without a home, without Kili there to whisk him away on the wonderful adventures he came to love?

And all of this is just material things, completely insignificant to Fili without _Kili._

His heart – he wouldn’t have a heart, only a shattered, bleeding fragments of what once was. Kili is his heart.

The problem is that Kili made him fight for himself and without him there Fili has absolutely no interest in continuing that fight.

He doesn’t feel the tear-tracks running down his face, blue eyes trained instead on the rain battering the window where he’s tucked himself on top of a low windowsill.

The rains came, just as Kili predicted, ushered in by the winds from the ocean.

 

\---

 

Kili comes round woken by a thunder.

His eyes open to a familiar shade of blue and he tries to smile, until he takes in the rest of Fli’s face.

Fili looks like _hell_.

“Hey,” Fili croaks and it sounds hoarse, like he’d been screaming for hours.

Kili tries to respond, but realises that there’s an oxygen mask fixed over his mouth and nose, tries to knock it off, unsuccessfully, until Fili helps him remove it.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, but the only response Kili can think of is –

“How are _you_ feeling?” because there’s something in his eyes that is screaming at Kili, assaulting his instincts to care and protect.

Fili raises an eyebrow. “You’re the one in bed, with tubes going in and out of your arms. Besides, I asked you first.”

Only now Kili realises that he is, indeed, lying in what appears to be a hospital bed. “What happened?” he asks, trying to put together the last of his memories and finding them severely lacking.

“You were stung by a wasp.” Fili says in the same raspy voice that alarms Kili so much, his hand slipping in to cup the side of Kili’s face. “Turns out you’re allergic to wasps. Did you know that?”

“What? No. I don’t think I’ve ever been stung by a wasp before,” Kili considers. Then a thought occurs to him: “Hang on, but weren’t we in the Amboseli?”

“Mhm, we were.”

“Then where –“

“Nairobi. We had an air lift with some tourists coming back home from a safari. Then the doctors stabbed you, repeatedly, with several types of injections, saving your life. And then I had a very good view of your arse, as they removed the sting.” He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Saving my life?!”

“Officially you were dead for over four minutes,” it sounds so wooden when he says it, so carefully casual that all of Kili’s instincts go off in a frenzy at once.

“Fili…”

“No, don’t. Not yet.” Blue eyes close and _now_ Kili can feel how much his hands are shaking against his face. “You’re here now, you should rest.”

 _What have I done?!_ fires through Kili’s mind, even though none of it is really his fault, it was an accident, something he couldn’t have known. “I need you,” he says instead, his hand closing over Fili’s to help steady it, and although it’s actually _Fili_ that needs him more, he won’t say it, not now.

Fili sighs as if the weight of the world was crushing him, then slowly rests his head on top of his folded arm, on the edge of Kili’s pillow. It’s tentative again and Kili can’t stand it – he rolls to the side, one arm closing over Fili’s shoulders pulling him closer, uncaring of the variety of IVs stretching precariously over them.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into Fili’s clammy skin and then – “we’ll get through this.”

 

\---

 

The flight back to Amboseli passes in near-complete silence, jarring their senses.

Fili looks out over the African landscape, the heavily overcast skies, but his eyes don’t really register any of it, trapped instead, and probably well-entrenched by now too, inside his own head.

Kili in turn, is trying to frantically herd his words together. They need to talk, as many times as it takes to set things right between them again.

Not now of course, not like this. But soon.

It’s like they’ve taken some sort of wild leap back to the very beginning. It’s heart-breaking seeing all that progress they’ve managed to build up discarded, and the intelligent, sensitive, curious person Kili managed to dig out from the rubble now gone once more.

Instead all he sees in Fili’s eyes is fear. Like he’s inhaled too much, like he’s allowed himself to trust, like he’s made a mistake and got burned and now all that is left to do is wait for another blow, the other shoe to drop.

There is loss as well, because Fili loved - _loves_ , Kili’s mind insists – and he doesn’t know what to do with that feeling, when it might be taken away at any moment. And guilt, something Kili can’t even begin to understand, considering that Fili hands down saved his life against all odds, as if Fili wasn’t worth –

He closes his eyes and banishes all that terrible desolation.

He knows Fili now, he understands how his mind works, which is more than he had last time. He’s done it once, he’ll do it again.

He goes back to the basics and carefully lays out all his weapons:

One: He loves Fili. Completely, unconditionally, totally. He draws from that love as much as he gives. He’s not going to stop.

Two…

 

\---

 

Kili doesn’t start with words; he starts with the feeling, a good feeling, which he hopes can sink into Fili’s heart like an anchor.

He starts with a bath, grateful for the little villa in a shady grove, which they’ve been allowed to use for a couple of days and all the luxuries that come with it.

Fili comes willingly, though his hands lack the gentle affection or mischievous pleasure that Kili is so used to. His own hands compensate for the both of them until Fili is breathing slowly, deeply and locking his eyes with him.

Bed, comfort, sex. Hands clasped so tight, it feels like they will never separate. Pleasure, Kili hopes, and intimacy, will be the things to break through.

Rolling movements of their hips, a rhythm they know and love, and now neither of them is quiet, never could be, like this.

He panics for a moment when he sees fear in the blue eyes again, almost stops altogether, but instead of backstabbing Fili, it seems to pour out of him. He sits up abruptly, cradling Kili in his lap and pulls him, so tight in his arms that Kili feels like he will have bruises along his back in the morning, but even then Fili can’t stop the full, exquisite thrusts.

It’s an odd sensation – love so sweet that it turns bitter – but they hold on, and pant, and scream, ragged and hoarse like all those screams Fili couldn’t get out but Kili heard in his voice all the same, and –

They hold on.

 

\---

 

He knows sex doesn’t solve everything.

But in this case it has shattered Fili enough for Kili to start pulling the shards of broken emotions like foreign bodies out of him.

“Tell me all of it,” he demands quietly, fingers tracing soothing patterns over the speeding pulse of Fili’s heart. “Tell me exactly how it happened, how it felt for you, tell me your thoughts. Let me help, Fili.”

Blue eyes watch him for a second, hesitant but unguarded once more. And then he gives Kili the most precious thing he can give: words.

It feels like reading his journal, Kili thinks irrationally, carefully taking the lowly-murmured sentences and cradling them inside his soul.

And _now_ Kili knows fear too, thinking about stampeding elephants and helplessness, choices Fili had to make and those that have been stripped away from him, and the deafening forever-silence.

“I’m here now,” he says the only thing that even begins to tackle the enormity of what happened.

“You are,” Fili agrees and his hands aren’t shaking any more when he tucks some of Kili’s hair behind his ear.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he insists, determined.

Silence from Fili.

“I didn’t know –“ _this sort of fear existed before_ he thinks, doesn’t say it. “- it was this bad,” he finishes lamely instead.

Silence again, patient.

Wrong. None of those things are what he really wants to say. He’s trying too hard.

Kili takes a deep breath, thinks for a long moment and decides to follow his instinct instead. “There are things we can do. Not now, not like this. Not out of fear. But something – Something that will give you safety.”

“ _You_ are my safety.”

“I _know_. But you need that insignificant, everyday safety too, because like it or not, you judge yourself against your ability to survive.”

Fili doesn’t argue this time, instead just watches his face as if he’s trying to learn it by heart. “You love me,” he says eventually and it’s such a relief to see him take that one tentative step.

“More than anything,” Kili smiles, pulls him closer and whispers the one final mystery he knows right into that quiet space between them. “But Fili, I can’t insure your heart. I _swear_ I will protect it for as long as I have it, but if something was to happen – it will forever be vulnerable. Just like mine, when you talk about a stand-off with an elephant bull. It’s just love. The other side of it. Sometimes it feels like paralysing fear, but you need it too, if you’re brave enough to love at all.”

“You think I am,” Fili whispers eventually.

“I _know_ you are. You love me,” he echoes Fili’s earlier words. “I _know_ you. And I miss you.”

“I’m sorry,” he says automatically.

“No, don’t. I told you before: we’ll get through this.”

Their quiet, jagged conversation doesn’t solve everything either, but somehow it feels easier now that they have their words again and the weight of their experiences is shared between them.

Outside the darkening sky is cut by a lightening, then another, and a rumbling thunder which goes right through them, bringing with it a cleansing downpour, which will allow life in the Amboseli to flourish once more.

 

\---


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Written for WinterFRE2018, prompts #162: "When I look at you, I see my world and that scares the shit out of me." and #168: “I’m lonely,” he whispered.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Accidentally landed 2 prompts, instead of 1, whops. Also, this has been the hardest piece of writing I have done in a very long time. I must have re-written it a million times, discarded countless drafts and sat on it for over 2 weeks. But then it's hard for them, no wonder it was hard for me.
> 
> Also, we have now cleared the way for 3 other snippets in this universe, which had been stuck in my head for a while, and needed to wait until this was out. 
> 
> This chapter, unusually, follows directly after chapter 5.

 

Two miniature epinephrine pens, enhanced with nanites, which will form a bridge, keeping his trachea open if it starts to swell shut. Even within its protective casing and including a simple squeeze-to-inject mechanism, it’s less than an inch long, but it could save Kili’s life.

Wordlessly, he passes one to Fili, clipping his own onto his bracelet along with the credit-beads, various passes and visas and a few other trinkets he considers to be his essentials.

One shot should be enough for up to four hours, but if they can’t get medical attention by then, a second shot might be necessary.

Fili looks him in the eye as he takes the mini-pen and clips it onto his own bracelet.

Kili swallows dryly and looks away.

A hand takes his own and squeezes it gently. They’re in this together and Fili would do all of those terrifying things all over again to save him.

It’s perhaps the worst thought of them all.

 

\---

 

Hands, which Kili knows to be strong and steady and gentle, move delicately over paper under the harsh African sun, until Kili imagines he can hear the sound of ink drying against the page, except it’s not possible of course.

Kili closes his eyes as he takes a drink from his water bottle, tries his hardest not to look, not to presume too much when Fili chooses to keep his words to himself. He’s clearly fighting a battle of some sort, and Kili is grateful for at least that much, when Fili writes and writes and writes and outright growls from time to time, once or twice shutting his journal abruptly and hiding his face in his hands.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that they are completely all the way back to the start; Fili goes willingly when Kili pulls at him for that minimum amount of contact he needs to survive. But Fili doesn’t seek it, as if he might accidentally shatter Kili if he tries to hold on to him too tight.

His hands don’t deserve such a comfort and his eyes are full of conflict and exhaustion from being trapped inside his own head too long. He keeps to himself and he hurts, and he tries to protect Kili from it all.

He won’t be a burden.

So he writes – turning pages after pages into a secret guide to his troubled soul, his struggle, his attempt to lay down some lines he will not cross. When they left their city, Fili had a brand new journal just for the Amboseli trip, and now it’s more than three quarters filled.

“If I die, will you put me with my parents? I don’t want to be all alone,” he asks quietly one day, a ’propos of nothing, his binoculars following a giraffe in the distance.

Kili curls his fingers around his camera until his knuckles hurt, inhales slowly, _breathe, just breathe_ , rides the pain deep in his gut and feels twin tears roll down his cheeks in the complete, deafening silence between them.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry,” arms closing around him, one hand removing his camera, the other pulling him, finally of its own accord, tight against Fili’s chest.

Kili breaks then, and perhaps Fili breaks a little too, because they’re both shaking with the tremors of their bodies and Fili whispers –

“Promise me you won’t die. That you’ll be careful at least. That you’ll live. Not for me even, but for yourself. Please. I look at you, and I see my world and that scares the shit out of me.”

 

\---

 

Dis is there at the airport when they land.

Wordlessly, she hugs them tight, generous to both of them equally with her all-encompassing love.

“Mum? What are you –“

She squeezes them both tighter and instinctively they both curl into her embrace, wrap their arms around her too. Kisses to their cheeks, hands in their hair and tears that aren’t their own on their skin.

It should feel like Fili is intruding, like all this love isn’t meant for him, but he’s being held so tightly, so frantically comforted that he can’t help but accept it – all he wants to do is re-assure her and stop her tears.

He’s held like a mother would hold her son; he swallows tightly around the thought.

She pulls Kili away then, just enough to give him a thorough once-over look, stroke his face, look him in the eye and make sure that her boy is still whole and well.

“M’ fine,” Kili mumbles, embarrassed. “Fili saved me.”

When she transfers her gaze onto Fili, it feels like she’s staring right down his soul. Hands in his hair, around his shoulders, on the back of his neck, more kisses to his cheeks, his forehead, the arch of his eyebrow, more love than he can contain.

And she must see the fractures inside him, must see the fear and weakness in his eyes, because her face says _oh, Fili…_ and he’s being pulled into an even tighter hug, just for him, someone else, for once, holding him whole.

 _He saved me first_ , he tries for a tiny speck of humour when he can sign again, but the little smile he’s managed to work up to melts into tears at the look of gratitude, _so much_ gratitude in her eyes.

Nobody’s ever looked at him like that, with so much wonder and pure love, and need to ensure that he’s okay.

 _You saved him,_ Dis signs in response, her own tears flowing freely, and - _Thank you. You brought him back to me. You risked your life to bring both of you back, you did so well. You’re hurt, but you’re both here, and I can’t… You’re both here…_.

“Mum… Shhhh, don’t cry,” Kili is there too now, hugging her from behind and Fili leans into both of them too, and for a moment he hates himself for ever thinking that Dis would have done anything but find him, help him and love him like her own, even if Kili was dead.

 

\---

 

Kili can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe can’t breathecan’tbreathecan’treathecan’tbreatheCAN’T –

“Kili!”

He trashes helplessly, grabbing blindly at something, _anything_ but his throat is completely swollen shut.

“BREATHE!”

He gasps at the flood of sweet, sweet air, eyes flying open, straight from the over-bright African sun into the quiet darkness of their bedroom.

“Breathe.”

Kili knows this voice, grabs for Fili, scrambles to get closer, searching for solace and safety.

“Oh God –“ he pants, covered in cold sweat, shaking. “I dreamt –“

“Shhhhh… you’re okay. You’re okay, Kili.” Arms pull him close, hands stroking through his hair, murmured nonsense like medicine, helping him work himself down from a blind panic.

He’s back. He’s okay. He’s safe. They have epi-pens for if it ever happens again. He’ll be fine.

Eventually Fili sinks back against the pillows, pulling Kili with him, keeping him close, re-assuring with a million touches, slowly helping him relax. Soft fabric of Fili’s favourite stretched t-shirt, smell of sleep, faded fabric conditioner and something delicately woody underneath it all.

Curled up like this on top of Fili’s chest, Kili can feel his heartbeat – fast and terrified, the same as his own.

 

\---

 

A sound of something violently hitting the wall is what sends Fili running into their living room.

Kili is sitting at his desk, face hidden in his hands, the holo-screen before him frozen in a very close zoom on one of the photographs from Amboseli.

He twitches when Fili places a hand on his shoulder, but doesn’t look up.

“Kili?”

“The battery’s dead. Again,” he grits out and up close like this Fili is able to spot their wireless mouse lying, sans its battery cover, on the floor nearby.

“Kili,” he tries again.

Silence.

He crouches to pick up the mouse, put it back together and place it safely on top of the desk once more. He wishes he could put the two of them back together just as easily. He looks up just as Kili finally removes his hands and takes a carefully measured breath.

With his dark hair and stark framing of his eyes, it would be easy to assume that the dark circles somehow look at home on Kili’s face. But Fili knows this face, is an expert at reading it, and the circles simply don’t belong.

“You haven’t been sleeping well.”

His One sighs and allows his shoulders to drop, trying to hide behind his hair.

“Kili. Please…”

“Don’t –“ words, finally, quiet and defeated. “Don’t lock me out. Please. Just. Let me –“ Silence again. Pale line of Kili’s lips. Shaky breath. “I love you. I was there, Fee. Amboseli – it scared the living daylights out of me too. I need you, and I know you’re here, but it feels like you couldn’t be any further away and I… I’m lonely,” he whispers.

There should be guilt, but there isn’t – and that feels like Fili finally broke through some invisible wall, his heart simply brave now, and strong, instead of wrestling with a debt of trust. He feels an overwhelming need to protect, comfort and make amends. He loves, first and foremost and with it comes the co-dependency which used to terrify him, which might one day kill them, but is welcome all the same.

“Come with me.”

It’s April, but the nights are still cold and the Voiceless still burn rubbish in their big, metal drums outside to keep warm, except there are hardly any of them to be found around this time of the day.

Fili tosses his journal into the flames without remorse.

“No, that’s -!”

“Leave it.”

“But that’s your journal! It’s important to you!”

He turns to face his One, one hand still closed tightly around Kili’s, from when he marched them outside. “ _You’re_ important to me. I’m sorry I hurt you. I was focussing so hard on the possibility of you dying, that I forgot to pay attention to the you who is alive and well.”

Kili’s dark eyes keep being drawn to the pages twisting and dying among the flames, and thoughts, those important ones, meticulously catalogued and kept away from him.

“I can get another one,” Fili murmurs, his thumb stroking Kili’s skin soothingly. “One that I’d like to share with you.”

“I can’t possibly read your journal!” His outraged expression is a welcome change, making the corners of Fili’s mouth twitch and his eyes soften, because here is Kili who still has his fire and Fili falls in love with him all over again.

“I’d let you write in it too, if you like. For as long as you need. You have things you need to work through, Kili, and I’d like to try and help, if I can. I have words too, words I should have shared with you, words that I need you to understand.”

“I don’t want to take your writing away from you. That’s not what I meant –“

“Not _take away_. _Share_. And if I can’t give you this much, how can I ask you to love me?” he asks quietly.

“It’s a bit late for asking _now_ , don’t you think?!”

Kili still looks absolutely incredulous and Fili can’t help himself any longer, allowing his dimples and a low chuckle to betray him.

There’s a second of startled silence from Kili before Fili finds himself pulled into a crushing hug that startles the air out of his lungs.

“God, I missed you,” Kili sniffs into his hair. “It’s been _weeks_ , you bastard.”

He’s probably right too.

“Sorry,” Fili murmurs once more and wriggles a little to push up on his toes and close his arms around the man he’s lucky enough to call his One. “I’m here now.”

 

\---

 

Apart from a couple of exquisite ones, given to him as gifts and greatly cherished, Fili isn’t picky about his journals. There are always some spare notebooks in the house, in case he runs out of pages, so it’s easy to pick one up and at the top of first page write simply _Fili + Kili_ and the date, turning it into a heading with a few straight lines.

For the first 2 days Kili eyes the journal like it might try and bite him; on the third day the journal disappears.

When Fili spots it again on the coffee table several hours later, there is no new text but somehow _Fili + Kili_ has been embezzled with hearts pierced with arrows.

He arches an eyebrow.

“I was trying to think of words. It’s not my fault that I think better when I doodle,” Kili mutters, ears turning pink, but stubbornly continuing to play with his holo-pad.

Fili shakes his head in amusement, but can’t really help a swell of affection at the silly little gesture.

 

\---

 

The most immediate thing they both need is closeness.

As soon as the Amboseli photos are done and out of the way, Kili declares a hiatus.

It would be pointless to try and work now anyway – all he can think of is Fili, his tentative attempts to re-connect with the person he’s managed to become, his rare, but present smiles.

He takes his face in his hands and kisses him, often and deep, full of meaning. He strokes the cheekbones and laugh lines – a testimony of a better time - a neatly trimmed beard which makes him look older than his actual age, warm skin of his neck.

Fili in turn reigns in his sleeping habits, sometimes literally pulling him to bed, so he can whisper reassurances and soothing nonsense in his ear until Kili – confident in the possession of the one thing he wants most in the world – eventually drifts away.

They laze around, talk, push at each other a little once more. They make love now more often and slowly – chasing the feeling of being connected more than the sexual fulfilment itself. It takes all of those things to put out the fires of doubt and coax Fili’s words out again.

They go on long walks – hand in hand, because hand in hand feels good, and safe, and necessary – and it’s easier outdoors somehow, letting the conversation flow naturally, until eventually the first of their secretes begin to spill.

 

\---

 

_All I have, I have because of you._

The words glare at Kili from the paper, just this one sentence in its own right, claiming a paragraph all to itself with the vastness of the meaning behind it.

“That’s not true,” Kili argues with the page, making Fili look up from where he’s peeling a clementine.

“Hm?”

“All you have is because _you_ were strong enough and smart enough to survive on your own on the streets, for _years_. I don’t even feature in that story until very recently.” He crosses his arms.

That makes Fili sit down opposite from him and look him in the eye. “ _Surviving_ isn’t the same as living, Kili,” he offers quietly.

“Your circumstances don’t define you,” Kili counters with the wisdom he’s somehow brewed since meeting his One. “You _know_ that, I know you do – I’ve seen the way you look at people who have even less than you do, but inspire your respect all the same. You were ready to fight me when we first met. Then you were ready to protect me. Only _then_ were you ready to love me. And that’s _you_ all over, the person that’s always been in there. That’s _your_ strength.”

“Only one element of what strength is, and born out of necessity. _You_ are the one that makes me want to fight for myself, Kili. I’ve achieved things I never thought I’d achieve, been to places, learned things! The core, the hunger might have been there before, but you’re the one I chose to wrap my life around.”

“You were still the one to do all those things; it takes nothing away from the value -”

“Kili.”

Blue eyes are calm and intelligent when the blond takes his hand, like that very first moment they shared, and Kili wishes he could show Fili exactly what he sees, how much it means to him.

“You taught me how to be happy, how to care about myself; you gave me _worth_ and something to be brave for.”

Kili looks away then, because that’s so _important_ and Fili, this careful Fili, with a spider web of fractures, still trying to figure himself out, put it into words and gave them to Kili.

“You were lying in that hospital bed with a tube down your throat and I thought: ‘if all of this was taken away, would I still care?’ And the answer was ‘no’. That’s something I need to work through. I’d like to be able to do things for myself too, try not to lean on you quite so completely. And I think… perhaps I’ve tried to take that too far at first, ended up pushing you away, when all I was trying to do was learn how to live for myself.”

“I can’t really help with that, can I?” Kili whispers eventually.

“You can be there, by my side. You could lean on me a little too, give me time and freedom without letting me go.

Kili leans into the hand that reached to stroke his cheek when he was paying attention to the words. “I will,” he promises, eyes sliding closed.

“I know.” Fili murmurs, pressing their foreheads together. “I love you, Kili.”

 

\---

 

_I don’t know how to do this. Your thoughts are so much more coherent than mine, Fili._

_You taught me patience, and the value of boundaries, and a quiet desperation of love barely tasted._

_You forced me to reach for the best things in me._

_You saved my life, in a situation where you had no right to succeed. This needs to be said, and you need to hear it, and I need you to stop and think about that for a minute. _

_You are infinitely stronger than you think you are._

_It’s not about fear, not for me, not any more. If something like that ever happens again, just… be there. Keep me close. And I’ll be fine._

_Don’t ever send me away to keep me safe. Please._

_But you’re still... ~~upset~~ ~~trapped in those four minutes~~ ~~you’re not completely back~~ ~~you’re –~~ ~~growing, I think.~~_

_I understand, but I don’t have the right words._

_Just know that you can ask for anything._

 

\---

 

Fili looks up, sensing Kili hovering at the door.

Hovering usually means that he’s unhappy; or worried, or he’s done something he thinks he shouldn’t have done.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, tilting his head and putting the book he’s reading away.

Kili bites his lip. “Purely theoretically, if you needed to tell me something you thought I wouldn’t like, how would you do it?”

“Tell me,” he says simply, watching the expressive, dark eyes for some sort of a clue, apprehension twisting in his gut.

Kili hesitates for a moment longer, but then moves, coming to sit opposite from Fili. “Alright, listen. I will say this once, and then I promise I won’t ever speak about this again. Not unless you ask me. I think it’s… it’s important, but I don’t mean to hurt you.”

“Kili.”

He opens the palm of his hand, revealing an innocent-looking, glimmering cube.

“It’s called a ‘backup cube’. I’ve been working on it since we got back from Amboseli. It contains –“ he swallows, watches Fili’s face for a second “- it contains my bank details, flat deeds, insurance policy, useful contact names and numbers, work passwords, digi-rights to the photos, some personal photos of my own, and, um, a will. I’ve added you to it. Everything you might need, in case… anything happened.”

Fili stares at the object, tells himself to breathe, to swallow the things that are hovering at the back of his throat.

He _hates_ the cube instantly.

He has no words, and even if he wanted to, he couldn’t quite describe how it makes him feel. Something between rebellion, pain and a passionate need to protect.

“I haven’t built this out of fear, Fili. I made it out of love. I need you to know that.” Kili whispers quietly and _now_ it’s no emotion at all, except for a furious, deafening pounding of Fili’s heart.

Still no words.

“Right.” Kili clears his throat. “Well, that went about as well as anticipated. I’ll just… I’ll put it in the box with the documents. Out of sight. And then –“ He moves to stand up again, but pauses, throwing Fili a quick glance, like a kicked puppy. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry with me before,” he says quietly.

Fili reaches out on instinct, gently cradling Kili’s wrist inside his hand, before tugging him back down onto the sofa.

“I’m not angry with you,” he says, and finally looks up, allowing his eyes to express what his words can’t.

Another gentle tug and Kili comes willingly, slotting himself in along Fili’s right side, his forehead pressed to Fili’s cheek. He wraps both his arms around the other warm body and for once he understands why Kili wanted just this when the distress felt like too much.

“Um. Fee?” hesitant, but trusting.

“We’re together. I’ve got you, Kili.”

 

\---

 

Fili watches Kili bounce around the stalls like an over-excited puppy in a pet shop. He tries to talk to _everyone_ , generous with both his words and his sign language, though his hands are too impatient, too curious for full sentences and even Fili struggles to read them.

Kili _adores_ markets, of any type, anywhere. He loves the uniqueness of the products available and the fleeting opportunity to get something, made by someone, from another human being, inside the moment which won’t align into the same pattern ever again.

It was Fili who spotted the craft market fair poster, who wordlessly tugged at Kili and manhandled him until he had him standing right in front of it.

Kili inhaled sharply, Fili blinked and –

“We _have to_ go!” his One demanded, all eyebrows and wide, dark eyes, staring at him with ferocity that had Fili trapped. “Groceries earlier – at 8, in fact, we could get the 7:54 tube, and I promise I’ll make it up to you, haul it back, then the fair, and swimming pool after,” he effortlessly re-arranged their entire Saturday, between one excited heartbeat and another.

“Alright,” Fili nodded slowly and took the passion for himself.

He needed that.

A low whine pulls Fili back to the present and he strolls up to where Kili is holding a brightly-embroidered satchel in a way that suggests that he’ll be unwilling to part with it ever again.

“I love everything about it, except it needs partitions inside. Sections, Fili, _sections_ are what turns a good bag into a great one!”

“How good are your sewing skills?” Fili asks, and takes pragmatism.

“Pathetic. I have once sewn my own hair to a jacket, trying to put a patch on it,” Kili huffs and Fili takes laughter, mischief and humour and thinks that they’re surprisingly important. “How good are yours?” his One counters hopefully.

“Excellent.”

“They are?!”

A nod. “You ever find a thermal hiking jacket with a tear in its side, or any other good, warm, waterproof piece of gear and it’s a treasure. Obviously, you fix it. I never understood why people, generally, don’t – it’s not even that hard and you can make the stitches look invisible. I used to carry a small sewing kit around with me.”

He takes a fascinated, awe-struck, adoring gaze and tucks that inside his heart too. In small doses. On special occasions.

“So you could –“

“I’ve never tried working with bags, but I’d give it a go. You’ll need some fabric for the lining and something stiff but flexible to put in the middle.”

Kili squishes him in a tight hug and Fili allows his eyes to soften and carefully wraps all the things he’s collected in affection, love and kindness.

He will try to remember all these things.

There is a line in his journal:

 _We have a future, Fili,_ it reads.

It’s one of those ground-breaking ones, which Kili just drops every now and then as if they were obvious, carelessly throwing Fili’s entire world upside down.

Because –

 _Yes. Yes, we do,_ Fili writes carefully underneath and takes a deep breath.

A future he will have to work for. A person he wants to be. A relationship he’d like to help shape.

And from the moment he’s accepted the simple statement, they’ve moved on. So now Fili is taking the things important to him and drawing strength from them, braiding them into a new reality, just for him.

In Amboseli, the cleansing rains have arrived.

 

\---

 

_If I live, will you put me in your heart? I don’t want to be all alone (anymore)._

Kili bites his lip, picks up a pen, writes –

_If you live, will you trade with me for my heart? I don’t want to be all alone (either)._

 

\---

 

_I’ve been thinking this for a while now: I’d like to go back to school._

_I never sat exams – I dropped out a year too early for that. On paper, an average 15-year old is more educated than me._

_But that’s not the reason why._

_I need to do this for myself, just to prove that I can, and so I know that I’m no worse than the people who used to look down on me. I’d like to find an interest of some sort, perhaps a passion, if I’m lucky, and see what it would have been like if my life followed more conventional route._

_I don’t want it to get in the way of our travels though – I hold no delusions about which one of the two is more insightful, and anyway, we have proven before that staying apart is more than we want to put ourselves through._

_I’ve been looking into some online courses, many of which are government co-funded, if you’re a Voiceless. They’re broken down into modules, which allows more flexibility than classical schooling, but allows you to walk away with the same qualification. I could do it from home…_

_I could do it._

 

\---

 

He rinses another bowl and adds it to the neat stack of clean dishes to his left.

Through the little window above the sink, if he pushes up onto his toes, Fili can watch the Voiceless and the Homeless sat on the benches in the main area of the soup kitchen.

His friends, for they never stopped being that, people he catches up with at least once a week, people who looked after him, in their own way, when no one else would.

Fili attacks another plate, scrubs at the dried bits of sauce, and allows the muscles of his feet to rest a little.

“Want me to find you a box?”

He loves the mischievous almond-shaped eyes, more than life itself, but it won’t save Kili from getting drenched. Casually, he tilts the now-clean plate he’s holding and methodically sprays Kili’s front with water, but is somewhat thwarted by the pile of dirty dishes which Kili brandishes in front of himself like a shield.

“Oh, very mature!” Kili screeches, placing the heavy tray to Fili’s right and laughing. “Just for that, I’m drying myself on you.”

Fili allows himself a small smirk when Kili’s overly long arms wrap around his waist and press his One flush to his back. “Good luck with that – I’m positively drenched in sweat. Your front to my back is practically refreshing.”

“Charming,” Fili doesn’t need to see Kili to know that he’s rolling his eyes, but then there’s a kiss pressed to the side of his neck and Fili’s hands forget to scrub. “Have you eaten yet?” Kili murmurs in his ear. “Want me to take over in here, so you can be the waiter for a while and socialise?”

“No, and yes, please. Thanks. I’m actually starving.” He shuts off the water and peels his gloves off so he can pass them on to Kili. When he turns around, Kili only pins him back against the sink, but is forgiven when he leans down to kiss Fili deeply on the lips.

When Fili looks up, the brown eyes are warm and soft, inches away from his own. “Completely co-dependant,” he mutters, amused.

“Completely,” Kili agrees, and kisses him again.

 

\---


	7. Chapter 7

 

Fili falls in love with water probably from that very first bath in Kili's flat.

It’s clean, it’s hot, it takes away the pain and allows him to relax for the first time in ages. He loves it for the sense of normality it brings him, making him feel like a human being again.

He also appreciates that he can lock the door when he’s in the bathroom, giving him a private space where he can pretend, just for a second, that his life hasn’t just taken a wild plunge, which Fili isn’t at all ready to deal with.

He sinks in until water covers his ears and luxuriates in the feeling of warmth enveloping his skin and weightlessness which he’s almost completely forgotten. He scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until he feels marginally less filthy than when Kili first found him.

It’s water, gentle, kind water which takes away the dirt.

That he _can_ have a bath at all becomes something really important to him, the feeling flaring up each time Fili steps in and sits down among the fluffy peaks of foam. At first he worries about the bills, but as the time passes and it becomes obvious that Kili doesn't mind, Fili shamelessly indulges himself.

"You know there's a pool at our office building, right?" Kili tells him not long after.

He supposes his face must have lit up, because Kili grins and wordlessly hands over his work pass. There are some advantages to working for a prestigious magazine, it seems.

It becomes their little routine: on those days when Fili isn't working at Luciano’s coffee van, he comes to pick Kili up from work, but times it so that he has at least an hour for a dip beforehand.

Discovering swimming is like falling deeper in love: even with the last mild aches of his healing upper arm injury, he doesn't tire in the water quite as quickly, and the more lengths Fili does, the more his stamina improves. He loses all sense of time in the water, challenging himself to more and more lengths, until Kili starts popping down to the pool to collect his One, instead of the other way round.

“Just fetching the boyfriend,” he calls at the receptionist and they buzz him through, since Kili is now, of course, deprived of his own card.

He sits himself in one of the old-fashioned plastic chairs lining the pools’ sides and patiently waits as Fili sheepishly swims towards his end. “Hi, Little Mermaid! Had a good day?”

“I did, yes. And it’d be ‘Little Merman’, if anything,” Fili corrects, watching Kili’s eyes wander as he hauls himself out of the water.

Later, he’ll learn to flick drops of water at Kili for his gentle teasing; he’ll learn to appreciate Kili’s gaze on his body and once he’ll even manage to pull him under the shower for a hot, wet snog, which will leave Kili dripping wet and swearing all the way back home.

Later, Fili will get his own pass, but the staff will continue buzzing Kili through, out of habit.

For now though, he focuses on being supported by the water’s natural buoyancy, centred by the soothing rhythm of swimming, and satisfied with the mild ache of exercise it leaves him with.

Then Greece comes up very unexpectedly, one early October day.

"If we pack now and get an early start tomorrow, we could catch a 7:30 flight to Heathrow, then a connecting one to Perveza, ele-cab it to Igoumenitsa -" Kili rapid-fires at a startled Fili, just arrived from the kitchen with his fresh cup of tea, as he scrambles to pull out their travel bags. "-catch this bout of good weather they've been having! It's out of season, so it won't be hard to find a room, I've already Skyped Kostas..."

It’s hardly the first time their plans change rapidly overnight, and anyway, by now Fili loves and trusts his One implicitly, so he simply puts down his mug and goes into the bedroom in search of clean underwear to pack.

48 hours later Fili finds himself on a small, battered motor boat, which looks suspiciously like it’s only held together by the consecutive layers of white paint it’s been slathered in. Next to him his enterprising One is steering said boat somewhat over-enthusiastically into a sea cave.

Fili didn't know that Kili was licenced to steer a boat, and at this point he’s too afraid to ask.

If discovering the pool was like falling in love, then discovering the sea is like having his first orgasm.

Fili simply stares at the expanse of warm, turquoise water, at the wake left behind them and the tiny dots of fishing boats visible in the distance. It’s all so… clean and beautiful, shimmering in the strong, Mediterranean sun with a thousand colours between dark navy blue and pale green.

It all looks like a picture from a book, or perhaps a travel brochure, only Fili is _in it_ , or _almost_ in it and he can’t believe his luck.

"Kingfishers," Kili breathes reverently, shutting off the engine and allowing the boat to coast gently towards the barnacle-covered walls of the cathedral they’ve arrived at. "They like cliffs and caves just like this one, for nesting. And then if you just wait patiently, they come out swooping down, catching fish right in front of your lens. They're so beautiful, Fili!”

Fili smiles at his wild enthusiasm, kisses him soundly –

\- And dives right off the side of the boat, deep into the crystal clear waters of the cave.

It calls to him: clean, soothing and intriguing with its schools of little colourful fishies, and who is Fili to resist it?

He thinks he can hear Kili laughing behind him gleefully, but if he is, Fili probably deserves it.

The sea leaves him happy, but drained. He’s grateful for the offered hand when Kili helps him climb back on board and he dozes off on the way back, wrapped up in a towel and lulled into sleep by the gentle rocking of the waves.

It’s only later that evening, with a slab of moussaka in front of him and a glass of home-made, sweet red wine, does Fili realise just how much he’s crashing, his mind is still buzzing from being able to swim in an actual, crystal-clear sea cave.

“Do you know a Greek name for a kingfisher?” Kili asks once he has Fili safely tucked in bed and is showing him some of his best shots of the day.

Fili shakes his head no, too tired to actually respond.

“They call it the ‘halycon bird’. The ancient Greeks believed that kingfishers build their nests on rafts of fish bones and, having laid their eggs, they set them afloat on the sea. Allegedly, they incubate the eggs for seven days before and after the winter solstice so the gods always make sure that the seas and winds remain calm during that period. The Greeks call it the ‘halycon days’.”

Fili smiles. “We’re early then,” he points out helpfully. “For the hatchlings, I mean. We’ll have to stay a while.”

Around him, somehow the bed and everything else seems to be floating still, swaying to the gentle lapping of waves as if he never stepped off the little boat.

In front of him, unbeknownst to Fili, Kili is giving him a considering look.

“So, I was thinking Maldives,” Kili casually announces just before Christmas. “Perhaps in February, just as the monsoons are changing. It’ll be cooler, but not yet pouring down with rain. And the flight prices look good.”

Fili blinks. “I’m sorry, _why_ are we going to the paradise islands?”

“To learn how to scuba dive, obviously.”

“Right.”

“And to do some underwater photography. I’ve been looking at some cameras, Fili. It’s the one skillset I don’t have yet and it’s good to have them all, to keep your options open.”

Two and a half months later and slightly better packed this time, Fili finds himself aboard another boat, this one thankfully being steered by a local captain. Fili is wearing a full wetsuit, which took some wriggling into, proper fins and, courtesy of Kili, he has a far-too-sophisticated mini underwater camera to take his snaps with.

They have done several dives by now, but this one is going to be their first truly solo one. They have enough air for just over an hour and enough excitement between them to feel absolutely shattered: neither could sleep last night.

If discovering the sea was like having an orgasm, then exploring a tropical reef together is like sharing a really spectacular one with your loved one.

Fili glides through the familiar now weightlessness, watches this entire city of marine life going about its business right in front of his eyes. He peers at Kili, who is trying to chase after colourful fish and smiles to himself when the fish rudely refuse to pose.

He sinks into the sense of peace and the simple, stupid happiness he always feels in the water, allows the gentle currents around him to soothe his soul. He understands it a bit better nowadays: the water helps him re-centre himself and creates a temporary buffer between Fili and the rest of the world.

Fili measures his progress in increments of little things, which most other people fail to even notice: the number of Kili’s smiles that he’s directly caused, days lived completely without fear or doubt, the quiet little ‘I love yous’, but specifically the ones that fly free from his heart without Fili’s conscious authorisation and a hundred other, meticulous metrics.

When it comes to water, he measures it in contentment: quiet and wonderful, like the life he now loves.


End file.
